Parliamentary elections will be held on April 2 and voters will elect governors in the country’s 36 states to round off the process on April 16, INEC chief Attahiru Jega told a news conference in the capital Abuja.
The presidential elections are shaping up to be the most fiercely contested since the end of military rule just over a decade ago, with attention focussed on who the nominee will be for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Party primaries must be concluded by January 15 and can begin any time from November 26, according to the timetable.
President Goodluck Jonathan is considered the front-runner in the primaries but his candidacy is controversial because of an agreement in the PDP that power should rotate every two terms between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south.
Jonathan, a southerner, inherited the presidency this year after the death of Umaru Yar’Adua, a northerner who died part way through his first term.
Jonathan’s supporters say he was elected on a joint ticket with Yar’Adua and can complete what would have been the second term. His opponents say only a northerner can succeed him, leaving the ruling party divided.
A group of influential northern politicians said on Monday they had agreed on former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as a consensus candidate to challenge Jonathan in the primaries, potentially consolidating the northern vote against him.
But Nigeria’s political system, heavily based on patronage, has always favoured the incumbent in previous elections, meaning Abubakar could face an uphill struggle, analysts say.
ETHNIC RIVALRIES
Nigeria is a generally peaceful country of more than 200 ethnic groups but regional rivalries and tribalism bubble under the surface and risk being exploited in the run up to the vote.
“I will run and encourage others to run a national campaign devoid of sectionalism because leaders ought to unite, not divide,” Jonathan said in a posting on his Facebook page.
“The only difference we should look for in Nigeria is between good and bad, not north and south.”
Abubakar said on Tuesday that Jonathan’s candidacy had come as a “rude shock” to many Nigerians and said his bid rode roughshod over the power rotation agreement in the ruling party.
“Those who were promoting this devil-may-care attitude demonstrated quite early that they would employ the power of incumbency and whatever means necessary to achieve their objective even if it means tearing this country apart,” he said.
Abubakar, a Muslim from the northern Hausa ethnic group who was vice president under Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, was one of the founding members of the PDP but his history in the party has been chequered.
He left the party after falling out with Obasanjo in 2006 and ran unsuccessfully for president as the opposition Action Congress candidate in the 2007 polls won by Yar’Adua.
The northern leaders picked Abubakar as their consensus candidate in favour of former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida, Kwara state governor Bukola Saraki and former national security adviser Aliyu Gusau.
Babangida and Gusau have both promised to support Abubakar, but analysts say his ability to unseat Jonathan in the primaries could depend on whether that consensus holds.
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