Nigeria National Assembly Election Results: Opposition Make Big Gains

VIBEGHANA: Nigeria’s ruling party has lost ground in parliament, according to partial results from Saturday’s elections.
The latest results show the ruling People’s Democratic Party still on track to control a majority of both the Senate and House of Representatives, but with smaller margins.
With at least half the results reported Monday, the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria had made significant gains in the southwest. Another opposition party, the Congress for Progressive Change made strong gains in the north causing ripples as to the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections scheduled to hold this Saturday.

The CPC is the party of former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, who is expected to be the main challenger to President Goodluck Jonathan in Saturday’s presidential poll.
The European Union’s monitoring team said Monday that the elections were held in a “generally peaceful atmosphere” and described them as “encouraging” overall.
The EU declared Nigeria’s 2007 elections “not credible” because of widespread fraud, violence and major organizational problems.
Saturday’s elections went ahead after two postponements and in spite of bombings at election-related sites in the cities of Maiduguri and Suleja.
The elections had been postponed because voting materials had not arrived at polling stations. About 15 percent of the races were still not held Saturday because of continuing ballot problems. It remains unclear when those constituencies will vote.

Cases of electoral violence and snatching of ballot boxes were reported, though not widely spread as in previous cases. Efforts were made in some places - like Anambra central senatorial district (for instance) to subvert the votes of the people. In the district, a former Minister of the Federal Cabinet who is contesting and a serving governor in the state have been alleged to manipulate results and make bribe offers to the electoral officer at a time when it was very obvious the opposition was winning the district. This has led to the resignation of the said officer stating conscience reasons.

However, Is this the costliest election for the country so far? CNN's  Christian Purefoy reports....

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In other West African - African news: Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo has been captured
He was arrested as forces of the internationally-recognised successor Alassane Ouattara and French tanks advanced on his residence.
Mr Gbagbo had been refusing to cede power, saying he had won November's presidential election.
France said pro-Ouattara troops had detained him, but aides to Mr Gbagbo said it was French special forces.
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