The elections in Nigeria didn't go very well

It could be an interesting day tomorrow in the energy markets - Nigeria held elections over the weekend and it appears that things didn't go very smoothly.

This report is just in from Reuters:

International and local monitors rejected Nigeria's election as a failure on Sunday in scathing verdicts on the first handover from one civilian president to another.

The opposition and foreign observers called the vote, marred by rigging, a shortage of millions of voting papers and violence in which 16 people were killed, the worst in Nigeria, plagued by years of military rule since independence from Britain in 1960.

As early results showed the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate Umaru Yar'Adua heading for victory, the main opposition party said it would not accept the poll and called for President Olusegun Obasanjo to be impeached.
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The electoral commission acknowledged late arrival of materials in some parts of Nigeria but said this would not invalidate the result. "The poll we had yesterday was free and fair. Nobody was molested," commission chief Maurice Iwu said.

The government alleged coup plotters were trying to discredit the poll and fan protests, after failing to blow up electoral headquarters on Saturday with a petrol tanker.

The opposition said it might bring its supporters out on the streets if the PDP claimed victory.

"This is the worst election ever in Nigeria ... They have no alternative than to cancel the election altogether," said outgoing Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, arch-enemy of Obasanjo.

The president tried every possible maneuver to exclude Abubakar, who stood for the opposition.

Definitive results are expected on Monday.

Nigeria is the world's eighth largest oil exporter and one of the chief suppliers of light sweet crude to the U.S., coveted by refiners because it is easily converted to gasoline.

On Friday, gunmen attacked an oil production crew on their way to an offshore rig in the Niger Delta. Yesterday, the New York Times published this story about the current environment for oil workers in the region.

Armed rebel gangs have blown up pipelines, disabled pumping stations, and kidnapped over 150 foreign oil workers in the last year. Companies now confine employees to heavily fortified compounds, allowing them to travel only by armored car or helicopter.

One company has fitted bathrooms with steel bolts to turn them into “panic” rooms, if needed. Another has coated the pylons of a giant oil-production platform 80 miles offshore with waterproof grease to prevent attackers from climbing the rig.

The violence in the Niger Delta is likely to be one of the thorniest political problems for Nigeria’s new president, to be chosen in the election April 21. Oil, after all, is the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, providing 65 percent of its revenue.

It should be an interesting Monday morning on the Nymex.

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This week's cartoon from The Economist: