{"id":24070,"date":"2016-03-22T01:33:46","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T01:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigeria-electoral-staff-killed-and-kidnapped-in\/"},"modified":"2016-03-22T01:33:28","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T01:33:28","slug":"nigeria-electoral-staff-killed-and-kidnapped-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigeria-electoral-staff-killed-and-kidnapped-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria electoral staff &#8216;killed and kidnapped&#8217; in Rivers state"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Nigeria&#8217;s electoral commission says some of its staff were killed, injured and kidnapped during an election re-run on Saturday in Rivers state.}<\/p>\n<p>An Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) spokesman blamed the violence on &#8220;armed thugs&#8230; allegedly acting on behalf of some politicians&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Voting was suspended in most areas of the oil-rich state, which has suffered from political unrest in the past.<\/p>\n<p>A re-run was ordered after legal disputes over elections in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Elections in the state are seen as a battle for the control of Nigeria&#8217;s largest oil wells.<\/p>\n<p>Voters were choosing seats for the state and national assemblies, but not the governor as the Supreme Court ruled his election last March should stand.<\/p>\n<p>A man walks on slippery spilled crude oil on the shores and in the waters of the Niger <\/p>\n<p>Several other deaths were reported in the polls, which have now been indefinitely suspended.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement lamenting the &#8220;deviant behaviour&#8221; of those involved in disrupting the polls, Inec spokesman Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi described &#8220;fatalities, kidnappings, [and] ballot snatching&#8221;, among other offences, which forced the vote&#8217;s suspension.<\/p>\n<p>Results in areas which had already been declared would stand, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite River state&#8217;s huge resource wealth, it remains poor and underdeveloped for the majority of the communities who live there.<\/p>\n<p>There is huge environmental pollution in some parts of the state due to oil spills.<\/p>\n<p>Rivers state has long been a flashpoint for political violence with the two leading parties &#8211; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) blaming each other for the friction.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11092 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88879479_gettyimages-469317554.jpg\" alt=\"The results of last year&#039;s elections in Rivers state were challenged in court\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Nigeria&#8217;s electoral commission says some of its staff were killed, injured and kidnapped during an election re-run on Saturday in Rivers state.} An Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) spokesman blamed the violence on &#8220;armed thugs&#8230; allegedly acting on behalf of some politicians&#8221;. Voting was suspended in most areas of the oil-rich state, which has suffered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24070"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24070"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}