ABUJA, March 29 (Reuters) - A Nigerian presidential candidate died on Thursday, President Olusegun Obasanjo said, casting doubt over whether landmark elections will be held as scheduled next month.

Adebayo Adefarati, 76, candidate of the opposition Alliance for Democracy (AD), died in the southwestern state of Ondo, private radio Ray Power FM reported. The station said Adefarati, who was diabetic, died in hospital.

Obasanjo, speaking at a campaign rally of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the capital Abuja, asked the crowd to observe a minute's silence in memory of Adefarati.

Nigeria's Electoral Act stipulates that elections can be postponed if a candidate dies after the deadline for substituting candidates passes, which is the case now. Obasanjo did not say anything about any postponement.

The constitution obliges Obasanjo to hand over power to a new administration at the end of his second term, on May 29. Any postponement of the polls would have to fit within that timetable.

The Electoral Act says a postponement can only be decided by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Spokesmen for the INEC and the AD were not immediately available to comment. It was not clear if the AD would request a postponement of the elections to allow the party to produce a new candidate.

Nigerians are due to elect their president, state governors and state and national legislators in polls that should mark the first fully democratic transition in Africa's most populous country since independence from Britain in 1960.

The gubernatorial and state assembly elections are scheduled for April 14 while the presidential and National Assembly polls are due to be held on April 21.

News of Adefarati's death comes at a time of heightened tensions in Nigerian politics. Opposition parties have accused Obasanjo of seeking ways to prolong his tenure, which he denies. (Additional reporting by Felix Onuah

By Tope Abiola and Yinka Oladoyinbo - 29.03.2007

THE health of the Alliance for Democracy presidential candidate and former governor of Ondo State, Chief Adebayo Adefarati, appeared to have improved as reports said he is out of coma.

Sources at the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, said that the 76-year-old politician “has been revived by the doctors, but his speeches are still incoherent.”

The source said that Chief Adefarati was now responding positively to treatment and was not likely to be taken abroad for treatment.

Intermittent prayer sessions were said to be holding at his home at Akungba-Akoko, his home town, to bring him back home alive.

A source told the Nigerian Tribune that the former governor might be discharged from the hospital tomorrow as his condition has improved drastically.

Efforts to get the management of the hospital to speak on the latest condition of the septuagenarian politician were, however, not successful.

Adefarati was admitted at the FMC, Owo, last Saturday following the deterioration in his health.

But his family insisted that the condition of the AD presidential candidate was not as bad as the people were made to believe.

However, the hospital management has tightened security around the former governor, as outsiders were not allowed to gain access to the private wards, where he was admitted.

Gboyega, one of the children of Adefarati, however, said his father would leave the hospital tomorrow, as his condition had improved tremendously.

He said the former governor only needed to rest for some time at the hospital, hence he would have returned home since.

penyng:

Na yaoooooooo

Obasanjo and PDP plan don work
i know that PDP will do something furny
to elongate obansanjo stay in office
that is why their senators in senate rufused the
amendment of the section of the constitution
that covered extension of april polls.

I know that their hand might be involved.
u know Africa remote.

Amabious:

How come they chose an old man to run for presidential election.