LAGOS, Nigeria, June 12— After nearly a decade of military rule,
Nigeria held its first free presidential election today against a
backdrop of social unrest and disillusionment.
The exhilaration many Nigerians felt in 1986, when Gen. Ibrahim Babangida promised a swift return to elective civilian rule, has been supplanted by rising anger and anxiety over the sluggish pace of change.
About 39 million Nigerians are eligible to vote for candidates from two new parties, which the Government created for the election. Both candidates are wealthy businessmen, Mashood Abiola of the center-left Social Democratic Party and Bashir Tofa of the center-right National Republican Convention. And both are reported to have spent millions of dollars of their own money in the contest for a four-year term .
Results of the election will not be known for several days in this country of about 90 million people, the most populous in sub-Saharan Africa, Distrust of Military
Amid the disappointment, distrust of the military authorities is running deep among opposition leaders and many ordinary Nigerians.
"People are no longer hiding their feelings about the exit of the military," said Pini Jason, a columnist for Vanguard, an independent newspaper. "Nobody wants them around for one day more."
General Babangida has postponed the scheduled date for civilian takeover three times since 1990. At the same time, the authorities have annulled another gubernatorial and parliamentary election, saying the results were compromised by allegations of financial impropriety and vote buying.
In the view of many Nigerians, efforts by the Government to orchestrate virtually every stage of the electoral process is part of an elaborate scheme to elect its own candidates. Perhaps not coincidentally, both Mr. Abiola and Mr. Tofa are widely regarded as close friends and allies of General Babangida, and few political analysts expect either one to stray far from the political and social policies already chartered by the military authorities.
At the same time, there are worries about how genuinely committed General Babangida and his military coterie are to democracy. Indeed, never far below the surface in Nigeria are questions about whether a few disgruntled soldiers are hanging about, waiting to intervene if they decide that civilian rule is too unruly for them. Military Usually in Control
Since Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960, fears about military intervention have proved well founded: soldiers have been in control for all but nine years of that period.
For his part, General Babangida has repeatedly assured the country that his commitment to hand power back to elected civilian officials on Aug. 27 is irrevocable. But many say they will believe it only when they see him actually leave the presidential compound in Abuja, the capital.
On Thursday, a ruling from the nation's highest court injected a new uncertainty in the election. Justice Bassey Ikpeme ordered the military Government to delay today's voting. Her ruling came in response to a lawsuit by the Association for a Better Nigeria, a group of private citizens who have campaigned for General Babangida's remaining in office. The association had asserted that the transition to civilian rule had been marred by widespread vote-tampering and corruption -- allegations that Justice Ikpeme agreed should be given a court hearing before the election proceeded.
But on Friday, the national electoral commission dismissed the ruling, declaring that the court had no right to preside over the elections.
But because of the confusion and anxiety, many political experts predicted a low turnout at the polls.
Since the campaign began in earnest last month, the two candidates, Mr. Abiola and Mr. Tofa, have been crisscrossing the country. Both have courted voters outside their natural consistuencies, a tough task in a country riven by ethnic and regional rivalries. Mr. Abiola, who comes from the mostly urban southeast, which is dominated by the Yoruba ethnic group, has traveled extensively in the north. Mr. Tofa, whose natural base is the north, which is mostly Hausa-Falani, has spent much of his time in the south. Ticket Balance Sought
Both have sought to balance their tickets, with Mr. Abiola choosing Babangana Kingibe, a northerner, as his running mate, and Mr. Tofa choosing Dr. Sylvester Ugo, a Igbo Christian from the east. Both Mr. Abiola and Mr. Tofa are Muslims, which is said to worry many Christians.
Nonetheless, the excitement of a real political choice has been tempered by the question whether either candidate is capable of reviving the country's troubled economy.
Whoever wins the election will have to confront a economic austerity program initiated by General Babangida that has been highly unpopular. After the freeing of currency-exchange rates in 1990, the prices of many basics have doubled or tripled in the last two years.
Nigerian economists said they did not know the unemployment rate, but some in Lagos speculated that it was high as 40 percent in urban areas. Inflation has also soared in recent months, while the value of the national currency, the naira, has plummeted.
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