Tensions mar Nigerian vote

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigerian soldiers opened fire on young men at a polling station Saturday, killing six people, and a gang stuffed ballot boxes into the trunk of a car during presidential elections in this oil-rich, yet desperately poor nation.

Despite those and several other incidents, observers said the vote for president and 36 state governors in Africa's most populous nation went smoothly.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is seeking a second term, and seems likely to win after his ruling party swept legislative elections a week ago. Three of his challengers were former army generals and he, too, was a military leader before he shed his uniform for traditional robes and was elected president four years ago.

Nigeria has never had a peaceful transition from one civilian government to another, and though tensions remained high after polling stations closed, the violence did not appear to be widespread.

The shooting occurred in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where many boycotted the balloting. Soldiers in the town of Okoroba started shooting at youths who refused to disperse from a polling station, said Derrick Marco, leader of election observers from the Institute of Democracy in South Africa.

Elsewhere in the region, ethnic Ijaw militants boycotted the vote and there was no sign of voting in one village, Ogbe-Ijoh.

"We can never allow elections until our demands are met," said Kinsgley Otuaro, an Ijaw militant leader whose supporters long have accused Obasanjo's government of colluding with rival Itsekiris to draw up voting districts unfavorable to Ijaws.

Many of Obasanjo's opponents charged that last week's legislative vote was rigged, and warned that their supporters would be ready to fight if the ruling party used fraud in the presidential vote.

Out of Nigeria's population of 126-million, some 61-million people were registered for the ballot. It was unclear how many voted, though officials said turnout was high. Results are expected by Monday.

There were scattered signs of corruption. In Warri, an Associated Press photographer saw 10 young men loading empty ballot boxes and bundles of voting cards into a car outside an election commission headquarters. In the northern city of Maiduguri, an AP reporter saw a man throwing thick bundles of small banknotes out of a car window near a ballot station.

There were some encouraging signs, including new efforts to protect voter privacy. In the ballot last week, almost nobody voted in privacy. For the presidential election, authorities set up booths made of grass mats to stop snooping.

SOMALILAND RESULTS: Incumbent Dahir Riyaleh Kahin was re-elected president of the breakaway republic of Somaliland by 80 votes, the electoral commission said Saturday. Kahin, leader of the Democratic United National party, received 205,595 votes, or 42.08 percent of those cast, in the April 14 election. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamud Silanyo of the Kulmiye party received 205,515 votes, or 42.07 percent. Somaliland broke away from the rest of Somalia in 1991 as the Horn of Africa nation descended into chaos after the ouster of longtime leader Mohamed Siad Barre.

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