By RFIPalled on 02-23-2019Modified on 23-02-2019 at 08:07

In Nigeria, the 84 million voters are called to ballot to elect their president, but also members of the Senate and House of Representatives. An election originally scheduled last Saturday, but was postponed for logistical reasons. A total of 72 candidates are running for the highest office. But the real battle for Aso Rock is between the candidates of the two main parties: outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari for the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar, opposition party candidate, the People's Democratic Party (PDP). A vote that looks very tight between two old roads of politics.

The startup will take time. In the popular district of Yaba, in Lagos where RFI is, there are 8 polling stations and things are taking place very slowly. Dozens of election officials were mobilized at dawn. They are still distributing ballot boxes, ballot papers and voter card readers between each polling station official. The atmosphere is quite calm in the neighborhood. Voters take their troubles patiently: the polling stations are not installed, the inhabitants go about their business.

It must be remembered that with the postponement in extremis of the elections decided last Saturday, there was as an uncertainty that hung over these last days. Some voters told us this morning that they had spent the night following the televised debates, to be certain that the election would not be postponed again.

Explosions heard in Maiduguri

Explosions, still unknown, were heard earlier this Saturday in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, just hours before polling stations opened for presidential and legislative elections.

Maiduguri has repeatedly been the target of attacks by the Islamist Boko Haram movement.

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