One of the world's leading oil producers,Nigeria would be going to the polls next April to elect a new set of political office
holders from the president to local
government area councillors.It is an election in which a lot of Nigerians are waiting for its conduct with great trepidation.Nigeria throughout its 46years as an independent nation has never had a smooth transition from one civilian administration to another.If the outgoing president,Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is able to conduct a hitch free election that will usher in a new civilian administration he will be making history as the first administration to achieve such a fit.The situation is not helped by the avowal of the president that he would not allow the incumbent vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to succeed him in office.The president insists that the vice president is very corrupt and therefore the country should not be left in the hands of such a corrupt man.Last year the president set up an Administrative Panel of Inquiry to investigate allegation of misappropriation of public fund by the vice president when he was incharge of Petroleum Technology Development Fund
,the panel headed by Bayo Ojo,Attorney-General and minister of justice found the vice president guilt and he was subsequently indicted.The president allegedly want to use indictment to disqualify the vice president from contesting the election.The president is said to be relying on the provision of section 100<1g> of the Electoral Act 2006.The section provides that a person shall not be qualified for an elective office if such a person "has been indicted for embezzlement or fraud by a judicial commission of inquiry or an Administrative panel of Inquiry or aTribunal set up under Tribunal of Inquiry Act,aTribunal of Inquiry law or any other law by the federal or state government which indictment has been accepted by the federal or state government,as the case may be".The vice president went to court to challenge his indictment by the administrative panel and the court declared his indictment null and void.Early December 2006 the president through one of his aides declared the office of the vice president vacant.The action received with great public opprobrium against the president,so on 27 December 2006, the federal government filed a suite at the Appeal Court,urging the court to restrain the vice president Atiku Abubakar from parading himself as the vice president,following the vice president's defection to the opposition party,the Action Congress from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party under whose platform the duo were elected to office as president and vice president repectively in 1999.The federal government also asked the appellate court to declare that Abubakar had lost both legal and moral rights to remain in office.Also on 27 December 2006,the vice president filed a counter-suit,asking the court to restrain the president from effecting his removal as vice president.Atiku prayed the court to pronounce that his term of office could only be said to have seized when he finishes his second term of four years on 29 May 2007,as stipulated by the constitution.The court ruled in favour of the vice president.Penultimate week,the president's desire to disqualify the vice president moved into a new gear when the Independent National Electoral Commission---the body that conducts the election---gave indications that the names of Atiku and other candidates indicted for corruption by an administrative panel of inquiry,who were not substituted by thier parties,would not be on the ballot papers for the general elections.The implication is that the candidates would not participate in the April polls.The vice president said he is under attack because he oppcsed the constitutional amendment last year to extend the tenure of the president beyond the constitutionally approved two terms of four years each.The constitutional amendment failed due to public opposition to it.Fear of crisis resultifrom the quarrel by the two top leaders has heightened.Such a crisis will definitely affect the world oil supply.