Witnesses said youths in the
northern city of Kano were
setting fires to homes that bore
Jonathan party banners. Heavy
gunfire also could be heard. An
Associated Press reporter there
saw hundreds of youths carrying
wooden planks in the street,
shouting“Only Buhari” in the
local Hausa language.
In Kaduna, home to the oil-rich
nation’s vice president, angry
young men burned tires in the
streets and threw stones at
police and soldiers trying to
restore order, witnesses said.
“Right now, I’m holed up in my
room. There’s gunshots
everywhere,” said Shehu Sani, a
civil rights leader. “They are firing
and killing people on the street.”
Olusola Amore, a federal police
spokesman, declined to
comment. Kaduna state police
spokesman Aminu Lawal
described the fighting there as
an“uprising.”
Kaduna is located in Nigeria’s
middle belt where Christians and
Muslims live together uneasily,
and where a bomb went off at a
hotel after Saturday’s election
wounding eight people.
Nigeria’s elections have long
been marred by violence and
rigging. But voting in the
Saturday presidential election
was largely peaceful.
Jonathan, who became president
after his Muslim predecessor
died in office last year, has long
been considered the front-
runner. His ruling People’s
Democratic Party has dominated
politics in the West African giant
since it became a democracy 12
years ago.
However, the country’s Muslim
north remains cold to Jonathan
as the Christian from the south
who took over after the death of
the country’s elected Muslim
leader.
Many of the north’s elite wanted
the ruling party to honor an
unwritten power-sharing
agreement calling for a Muslim
candidate to run in this election,
yet Jonathan prevailed in the
party’s primary.

Why is it that dumb people always trend along religious lines.