Nigeria has postponed elections scheduled for next weekend to allow international forces to regain control of areas in the north-east of the country currently held by the Islamist extremists of Boko Haram.



The country’s electoral commission said on Saturday night that the election, which had been scheduled for 14 February, will now be held on 28 March.

The postponement will increase tension surrounding an intense election campaign which has been conducted in the shadow of Boko Haram’s brutal assaults on towns and villages of the north-east.

Analysts say the election is too close to call. “It will be different this time, just because everything is so public nowadays,” said Bismarck Rewane, an economist at Lagos-based Financial Derivatives. “The stakes have been heightened so much through Twitter and social media, everyone is tracking everything.”

In Yenagoa in Bayelsa state on Friday, Judith Jacobs had been standing under the sweltering sun for more than five hours. The heat was making her dizzy but she still sounded upbeat at the possibility of glimpsing the president.

“We have to come out and support Goodluck Jonathan. He has done many good things to help people,” she said, hitching up her dress emblazoned with the red and green of Nigeria’s incumbent People’s Democratic party. Thousands of others who had come to welcome Jonathan at a rally in his home state wore variations of her dress. Dancers weaved through the streets and a steel band played as supporters came to welcome their native son, his helicopter due to land a few miles from the impoverished fishing village where he grew up.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters at a rally for president Goodluck Jonathan in Yenagoa. Photograph: Reuters

But there were rumbles of discontent behind the carnival-like atmosphere. For six years, Jonathan’s administration has made strides in Nigeria’s ailing agriculture and power sectors, but lagged behind almost everywhere else.

“Since I finished secondary school, I’ve never been able to find work,” said Stella Asaba, 32, also decked in green and red, who had taken the day off from her roadside food stall. “Jonathan has done so much, but we think he can do even better things in the next four years. We need our roads improved, we need health, water, electricity, employment.”

In a matching show of support, Muhammadu Buhari, Jonathan’s main challenger, was greeted by cheering crowds in Lagos a week earlier. Whenever it happens, the fourth election since the end of military rule in 1998 will be the biggest test of whether Africa’s most populous nation can hold democratic elections after decades of rule by the gun, bribery and intimidation.

In 2011, the election was delayed twice, including once less than a week before the scheduled date. This time, with a week to go, 19 million of the 70 million registered voters have yet to collect their voting cards. A debate has raged over whether the electoral commission is prepared enough, with the incumbent party, which has greater access to Nigeria’s dwindling petrodollars, pushing for a postponement.

In the north, where card collection has been high despite security concerns, Jonathan’s party has struggled most. Last month his convoy was attacked by young men with stones. “Even if you’re not as popular in some states, this was shocking,” an aide said.

There have been other challenges. Oil prices have plunged to record lows, draining government coffers and leaving many civil servants unpaid for months. “The global economy has conspired against Jonathan. The momentum has moved so much against him, he can’t slow it,” said Rewane. Then there’s the Niger Delta, where militants once waged an insurgency that disrupted Africa’s biggest oil economy. That has been sidelined by the crisis hundreds of miles north, with Boko Haram killing 10,000 people in the past year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Who are Boko Haram ... and what do they want?

Ahead of Jonathan’s arrival, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a former militant leader, rode through the crowds, his fist raised in the air as he sat on a black Mercedes. His Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force pushed oil prices to record highs in 2004 with attacks and threats against production in the delta’s swampy creeks. Since then, peace deals with the warlords, including a lucrative amnesty and government contracts, have pacified the area. An audit last week found at least $1.48bn (£1bn) had been siphoned from the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Company. A previous report by a respected former central bank governor put the figure at up to $20bn.

“I know you love me and I love you,” said Jonathan, wearing his trademark fedora and carrying a gold-handled cane, in a speech punctuated by bass guitar and cymbals. “I will make sure that ­everybody, in one way or another, tastes the fruits of democracy.” His wife, Patience, led the rally with a song asking God to guarantee his victory.

Elsewhere, the opposition’s slogan of change has resonated. Rather than turning it into a choice between two leaders, they have defined it as a choice between Jonathan or change. Many see no contradiction in that message, despite the fact that 72-year-old Buhari ruled Nigeria with an iron hand three decades ago.

“For me, if it’s a choice between what we have today, which you can see is not working, and what we don’t know. I will rather choose the unknown,” said Umar Mohammed, a carpenter, who came to support his candidate at the Lagos rally.

Back in Yenagoa, crowds cheered as Jonathan ended his rally. Men in dark suits jumped out of black 4x4s. The skies buzzed with helicopters landing and taking off. Within minutes, the last dignitaries were whisked away, leaving behind empty streets full of litter.