Former dictators vie for Nigerian presidency after violent campaign

Two former military dictators will today battle for the Nigerian presidency in elections already tarnished by violence and vote-rigging.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, who ruled the country as a dictator in the 1970s, will fight to retain his leadership from Muhammadu Buhari, a former general who seized power in a coup in 1983.

The hopes of entrenching the electoral process in Nigeria rest on the conduct of these elections. At stake is the office of president and the governorships of Nigeria's 36 states.

For most Nigerians, little rests on the direct outcome of the elections, with not much to chose, in many cases, between the politicians contesting them.

Saidu Adamu, a political sciences lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University in northern Nigeria, said: "What matters is not so much who wins from state to state. What matters is that we are having elections at all and that they are, at least, adequately conducted."

Home to 128 million people and one in six Africans, Nigeria has suffered six coups, a civil war and three decades of military rule since independence in 1960.

The military left power in 1999, 11 months after the death of General Sani Abacha. And today, almost nobody wants the military back.

But life for most Nigerians has barely changed since then and cynicism about the politicians who have taken over from the military is deeply rooted.

Sola Idowu, a teacher from Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, said he would be voting today.

"Our government has done nothing for us. It is useless.

"But we have to vote to show the military we do not want them back. They were worse. They did not let us express ourselves or anything," he said.

Twenty names and their party symbols will be on the ballot papers delivered to polling stations from the desert north to the tropical south. But only two of the candidates are expected to gain more than a few thousand votes between them.

Mr Obasanjo, a retired soldier, has led Nigeria as a civilian for the past four years. His main opponent is General Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party, who was forced out of power in 1985 after a 20-month rulestill remembered by many with fear.

Mr Obasanjo, candidate of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), is widely seen as a certain winner when vote-counting begins on Sunday.

But fears are widespread that violence that marred the campaign and the sort of vote-rigging seen last week in National Assembly elections will undermine the credibility of the whole electoral process.

In many towns and villages, in the south-east of the country in particular, no voting took place last week after electoral officials failed to deliver ballot papers or boxes.