Police 'harass' Nigeria observers

President Obasanjo is standing down after two terms in office

Secret police are harassing local Nigerian election observers, say a coalition of human rights groups.

Transition Monitoring Group leader Innocent Chukwuma said their offices had been ransacked for "non-existent" evidence of opposition financing.

"They claim that we are being funded by opposition politicians and they used this as an excuse to raid our offices," Mr Chukwuma told the BBC News website.

"This, of course, is not true. We believe that the aim is to silence us."

He alleges the government is using the secret police to intimidate local election observer groups into closing their eyes to the poor preparations for the polls due on 14 and 21 April.

But State Security Service spokesman Ado Mu'azu denies the TMG's claims, saying they are "baseless and unfounded".

Lists

The TMG criticised preparations for the polls and challenged Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) to display the list of voters registered for the poll.

"This they have failed to do. Instead they have resorted to cheap blackmail," Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, a TMG member told the BBC News website.

With less than two weeks to the elections, eligible voters have still to confirm whether their names are on the voter register or not.

"But the elections must go ahead as planned because if you postpone them, you'd have satisfied the desires of people who never wanted the elections to take place," Mr Rafsanjani says.