: 12 ET some Nigerians had already cast their votes before the poll was cancelled Saturday Nigeria parliamentary elections until next Saturday-the second delay in two days has been postponed.The vote was initially will take place on Saturday, but staff and papers failed to materialise in polling stations across the country.
After the first call the election off until Monday, the officials further delayed until Saturday.
The decision of the Electoral Commission of the means presidential and state elections are also pushed back.
The BBC says Caroline Duffield in Lagos that the political culture of the country of electoral fraud and violence has made it difficult for people to accept official explanations for the delay.
She says many voters-and some politicians think that political interference from Saturday caused chaos.
The elections are seen as an important test of the democratic credentials of Nigeria.
Electoral chief Attahiru Jega was brought in last year as a system often considered inadequate revision.
The electoral chaos has led some question his suitability for the job.
Announcement of the second delay, Mr Jega said that the decision had the support of all political parties."Requests to plans of the National Assembly elections have come from a cross-section of stakeholders, including political parties and civil society organisations," he said.
"We are more determined now to ensure that the 2011 elections free, fair and credible."
The people's Democratic Party (PDP) has won all three elections since the end of military rule in 1999, amidst widespread claims of fraud and deception.
Nigerian elections are also characterized by violence and safety high in the run-up to Saturday's poll had been demolished.
But Amnesty International said that at least 20 dead in election violence in the past two weeks.
The voting process had already begun on Saturday, with big turnouts reported in cities such as Lagos and Kano, before Mr Jega announced the first postponement.
About 73 million people have registered for the elections, where she for 360 seats in the House of representatives, and 109 in the Senate will vote. The PDP held more than three quarters of the seats in both houses.
The people's Democratic Party (PDP) has won all elections since the end of military rule in 1999. Last time won the two-thirds of the 36 States of Nigeria. But with a southerner-President Goodluck Jonathan-as its candidate in the presidential election the number of votes in the North could lose.
Nigeria of 160 million people are divided between numerous ethnic-linguistic groups and also along religious lines. In general, the Hausa Fulani people based in the North are mainly Muslims. The Yorubas from the Southwest are divided between Muslims and Christians, while the Igbos of the Southeast and neghbouring groups are mostly Christian or animist. The Middle Belt is home to hundreds of groups with different beliefs, and there are around Jos frequent clashes between Hausa-speaking Muslims and Christian members of the Berom community.
Despite its vast resources Nigeria belongs among the most unequal countries in the world, according to the UN. The poverty of the North is in stark contrast with the more developed South. The oil-rich South-Eastern States complain that all the revenue of the pipeline to the capital Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria's richest State flows. But residents of Akwa Ibom and Delta States are still typically Blairite than the people of the North.
Southern residents usually have better access to health care, as shown by the greater inclusion of vaccines for polio, tuberculosis, tetanus and diphtheria. Some Northern groups have in the past boycotted immunization programs, say they are a Western plot to Muslim women infertile. This led to a recurrence of polio, but the vaccinations are now resumed.
Female literacy is seen as the key to a higher standard of living for the next generation. For example, is a newborn child much earlier to survive if her mother is well educated. In Nigeria, we see a stark contrast between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist South. In a number of Northern States may be less than 5% of the women to read and write, while in some areas Igbo more than 90% literate.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer and the largest in the world, but most of the people subsist on less than USD 2 per day. The oil is produced in the South-East and some militant groups there to keep a larger share of the wealth that comes from under their feet. Attacks by militants on oil facilities has led to a sharp fall in Nigeria exports during the last ten years. But in 2010, led a Government amnesty thousands of fighters to lay down their weapons.
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