Nigeria’s
capital saw another day of protests Tuesday amid fears that millions of
Nigerians will be disenfranchised in the country’s upcoming general
election because of the government’s failure to
distribute required
voter identification cards. Around one hundred youths surrounded the
Independent National Electoral Commission headquarters in Abuja for the
second day of demonstrations demanding that the Feb. 14 election be
postponed to allow voter cards to be distributed, reported the Nigerian Daily Trust.
Protest organizers have charged the government of Nigerian
President Goodluck Jonathan of failing to distribute up to 40 percent of
the permanent voter cards required to participate in the election,
which is seen as one of Nigeria’s most hotly contested poll in decades.
Protesters also claimed that the electoral commission had not recruited
the 960,000 ad hoc staff necessary to conduct the election, one of the
many factors which they argued could disenfranchise millions of voters
in the country.
The issue is one of many stemming from the crisis in
northeastern Nigeria as a result of the insurgency by Islamist militant
group Boko Haram. The Jonathan government’s failure to quash the growing
threat posed by the group has been the target of other recent angry
protests. Last week, demonstrators stoned a vehicle carrying the
president, who is running for re-election against opposition leader
Muhammadu Buhari, in protest of his handling of Boko Haram, according to the Associated Press.
Critics have accused Jonathan of allowing the insurgency to escalate, a
charge that has become a centerpiece of Buhari’s campaign against the
incumbent leader.
The protests against Jonathan come amid greater insecurity in the
country surrounding the election, including a bomb attack in the
northern city of Gombe, minutes after Jonathan left a campaign event
there. A local journalist told the BBC
that the attacks had contributed to greater unrest in the city. A wave
of similar bombings targeting court buildings in towns in oil-rich
southern Nigeria was tied to the Gombe attack by police sources.
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