Jos, Nigeria — In this central Nigerian city with a history of inter-communal strife, the delayed kick-off of Nigeria's three-week long elections process was greeted by long lines of determined, hopeful voters. Despite logistical confusion at some polling sites throughout the day - and reportedly across the country - counting that appeared transparent, if often hectic, was underway at multiple vote "collation centers".
There was an explosion on Saturday at a polling station in the tense northern town of Maiduguri. On the eve of the vote, a bomb blast at an electoral office near the capital, Abuja, killed at least eight elections workers and injured more than two dozen people, many of them National Youth Corps volunteers.
But in Jos – a city often cast as the epicenter of brutal sectarian violence over the past decade – the mood at polling stations was jubilant. Voters, a couple of whom flashed thumbs-up signs at Nigerian and international journalists, endured scorching sun throughout a near day-long voting process. Would-be voters first had to be verified as registered through a accreditation process in the morning, before casting their ballots beginning at 12:30p.m. Despite a delayed start in several stations, the process remained calm and orderly.
In a city where political rivals and government officials have so often been directly linked to instigating violence, resulting in terrible tolls on the residents, voters in Jos know the stakes of these polls. Yesterday, many voters here seemed to be eager to participate in a process which they view as much more likely to be free and fair than the flawed and disputed elections held in Nigeria since 1999, when military rule ended.
"I came here to get in line right after morning prayers," said Danjuma Bawa, 32, a secondary school math teacher. "It's a better process this time," he said, expressing confidence that his vote will count this time.
Maggie Fick is an American freelance journalist based in Juba, Southern Sudan, currently reporting from Nigeria. Read her blog here.
