Tensions Rise in Nigeria

"Nigerians Vote in Crucial State Elections As Tensions Flare in the South"
By: Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/11/nigerian-state-elections_n_7045896.html?utm_hp_ref=black-voices&ir=Black%20Voices
Source: Huffington Post

Nigerian citizens approached the election for state governors and assemblies, where the opposition “hopes to make gains following its victory unseating President Goodluck Jonathan two weeks ago” (Huffington Post). Nine people were killed in the oil abundant state of Rivers. Dakuku Peterside, the gubernatorial candidate for the opposition, claimed that eight of his supporters had been killed; a police said that one officer was killed. President of the Kalabari Youth Federation Livingstone Membere spoke to The Associated Press from Asari Toru area, telling them that “A lot of gunshots in the air as I speak to you, but the military is trying their best to bring the situation under control” (Huffington Post). Both the house of the state commissioner for women’s affairs and a polling station were burned down. The rivalry is brutal since Nigerian governors are among the country’s most commanding politicians and regularly control budgets larger than those of numerous African countries. An electoral official that spoke on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to reporters claimed that eight youth corps polling agents were kidnapped on the day of the election and the police managed to rescue only four by that afternoon. Igbo people in Lagos, the financial heart of the nation, have filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission “after the king of the Yoruba tribe allegedly threatened to kill them if they did not vote for his opposition gubernatorial candidate” (Huffington Post). The opposition coalition hold fourteen states to twenty one for Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party, which has undergone many defections since his loss in the presidential election to Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator. Voters are appalled by the corruption that swallows billions of dollars. Even worse, they are sickened by Jonathan’s inability to restrain Boko Haram’s nearly six-year-old Islamic uprising in the northeast that killed a reported 10,000 people in the past year alone. According to U.N. statistics, nearly two-thirds of Nigerians struggle to survive on less than two dollars a day, despite their wealth of oil.