Nigeria ::Nigeria reels from post-election rioting

Nigeria

Nigeria reels from post-election rioting

Red Cross says many killed in two northern states after incumbent president defeated candidate from the region.

At least six people have been killed in Nigeria's northern states after Goodluck Jonathan was declared winner of Saturday's presidential election, defeating former military leader Muhammadu Buhari from the north.
The overnight violence raged despite Jonathan's appeal for calm in the usually restive region of Africa's most populous and oil-producing nation.

On the outskirts of Kaduna, burned out minibuses and cars lined the roads, and six burned corpses could be seen. Some of the victims also bore machete wounds. Skull caps and sandals were strewn nearby, left behind by those who frantically fled amid the chaos.
Authorities and aid groups have hesitated to release tolls following the riots for fear of inciting reprisal attacks, but the National Emergency Management Agency confirmed there had been fatalties.
Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from the capital Abuja, said on Tuesday the states of Kaduna and Kanu had been particularly hit by post-election rioting and that "eyewitness accounts [are] flooding in from people saying they're under attack".
"We're hearing churches have been set on fire; chaos and violence is unfoding in many villages and people are running for their lives," she said.
"One lady called me around 3am this morning frantically panicking. She had a call from her brother saying that his house was being attacked by supporters of Buhari because he was a Christian.
"It is a huge concern and it is really casting a very negative shadow on elections which have been declared free and fair by observers."
A Red Cross official said on Tuesday rioting had left "many people" dead, but he did not give further details.
"The displaced people are getting hostile because nothing is coming up in terms of relief," Umar Abdul Mairiga, the Nigeria Red Cross disaster management co-ordinator, told the AFP news agency.
"Our volunteers are out there and we expect details in the coming hour or so. What may come out of there is not very palatable because many people were killed, especially in southern Kaduna."

He said in some areas the situation was beginning to return to normal.

Thousands displaced
An estimated 15,000 people have been displaced by the riots that began sporadically over the weekend and spread quickly to some 14 states on Monday over rigging allegations.
The election, which has been described as the fairest Nigeria has held in decades, pitted Jonathan - a Christian from the southern state of Bayelsa - against Buhari, a Muslim.
Some of the north's elite did not want Jonathan to stand as a candidate but he emerged winner in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primaries and got nominated, dealing a blow to an unwritten power-sharing agreement - known as "zoning" - in which power tends to alternate between south and north. 

The president that Jonathan succeeded, Umaru Yaradua, was a Muslim from the northern state of Katsina and died last May before completing his first four-year term.

Jonathan, 53, called for calm in a televised address to the nation late on Monday, urging Nigerians to "quickly move away from partisan battlegrounds and find a national common ground".

"Nobody's political ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian," he said, hours after police said an angry mob in Katsina state engineered a prison break.

Hours before Jonathan was declared winner on Monday, Buhari, who stood on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), told Al Jazeera he believed the election had been systemically rigged.

"We have evidence in our hands that the computers [used in the voting process], were programmed to produce rigged results.”

But the Independent National Electoral Commission said it had done a good job with Attahiru Jega, its chairman, saying his staff "discharged our responsibility to the best of our ability on a nonpartisan, impartial basis and we have done our best to satisfy the aspirations of Nigerians for free, fair and credible elections".

John Kufuor, a former president of Ghana and the lead observer from the African Union, said he was "taken aback" by reports of the violence, as he and his team had only observed "orderly and calm" scenes.

"From what we observed, elections have go on, so far, credibly, peacefully and transparently," Kufuor told Al Jazeera.

The ruling PDP has been winning elections since 1999 when Nigeria returned to civilian rule and was widely expected to win as the opposition appeared to command support in less than 13 states of the country's 36.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies