Nigeria postpones vote to March 18 over Boko Haram violence
African Union countries plan more military strikes against extremists
Nigeria is postponing presidential and legislative elections until March 28 because security forces fighting an Islamic uprising cannot ensure voters' safety around the country, the electoral commission announced Saturday, a week before the vote was scheduled.
Millions could be disenfranchised if voting originally scheduled for Feb. 14 went ahead while Boko Haram extremists hold a large swath of the northeast and commit mayhem that has left 1.5 million people homeless.
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Commission chairman Attahiru Jega told a news conference Saturday night that national security advisers and intelligence officers have said security forces need six weeks to conduct "a major operation" against Boko Haram and cannot also safeguard the elections.
He said it would be "highly irresponsible" to ignore that advice and endanger the lives and security of electoral personnel and materials, voters and observers as well as the prospects for free, fair and credible elections.
"Many people will be very angry and annoyed" by the postponement, Jega said, but "I want to assure all Nigerians, no one is forcing us to make this decision, this is a very weighty decision."
Officials in President Goodluck Jonathan's administration had been calling for the postponement. Any delay was opposed by Jonathan's chief rival, former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari and his opposition coalition, even though the opposition is expected to take the most votes in the northeast.
Civil rights groups staged a small protest earlier Saturday against any postponement. Police prevented them from entering the electoral commission headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. Armed police blocked roads leading to the building.
African Union officials were ending a three-day meeting Saturday in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital, to finalize details of a 7,500-strong force from Nigeria and its neighbours Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Niger. Details of funding, with the Africans wanting the United Nations and European Union to pay, may delay the mission.
Nigeria's home-grown extremist group has responded with attacks on one town in Cameroon and two in Niger this week. Officials said more than 100 civilians were killed and 500 wounded in Cameroon. Niger said about 100 insurgents and one civilian died in attacks Friday. Several security forces from both countries were killed.
International concern has increased along with the death toll: Some 10,000 killed in the uprising in the past year compared to 2,000 in the four previous years, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.
The United States has been urging Nigeria to press ahead with the voting. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Nigeria two weeks ago and said that "one of the best ways to fight back against Boko Haram" was by holding credible and peaceful elections, on time.
"It's imperative that these elections happen on time as scheduled," Kerry said.
Violence threatened
The elections had been called early. Elections in 2011 were postponed until April. May 29 is the deadline for a new government to be installed.
Supporters of both sides are threatening violence if their candidate does not win. Some 800 people were killed in riots in the mainly Muslim north after Buhari, a Muslim, lost the 2011 elections to Jonathan, a Christian from the south.
Analysts say the vote is too close to call in what is likely to be the most tightly contested election since decades of military dictatorship ended in 1999.
Jonathan's party has won every election since then but the failure of the military to curb the five-year Islamic uprising, growing corruption and an economy hit by slumping oil prices have hurt the president of Africa's biggest oil producer and most populous nation of about 170 million.