Nigerians voted on Saturday in what looks set to be the first genuine electoral contest since the end of military rule in 1999, one in which an opposition aspirant has a fighting chance of unseating the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan. Seeking a second elected term, Jonathan is facing off against former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari in a tense race with an electorate divided along ethnic, regional and in some cases religious lines. Twelve other minor candidates are also running. Polls open across 119,973 polling stations at 8 a.m. (3.00 a.m. ET) for accreditation, then actual voting starts at 1.30 p.m. and continues until the last person has voted. With 56.7 million eligible voters, it could drag well into Sunday. In the northern city of Kano registration started on time but elsewhere voters had to wait in the brewing tropical heat as election officials failed to turn up. "It is 9 am now and we have not seen anybody. They were suppose to be here before we arrived but they are not," said Linus Okorie, one of 60 voters getting impatient at the Life Camp polling station in Abuja. The start was also delayed in at least three polling stations in the southern city of Lagos. The vote is seen as a referendum on the record of Jonathan, a former zoology professor whose time in office has been blighted by massive corruption scandals and an insurgency by Islamist Boko Haram militants in which thousands have died.
