Nigeria's presidential election will be held on February 27th next year while parliamentary polls will take place a week earlier, the head of the election commission said yesterday.
Justice Ephraim Akpata, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, said elections for a National Assembly will be held on February 20th and those for state governors and state houses of assembly on January 9th.
Nigeria is a federation of 36 states, plus the federal capital territory, Abuja.
The INEC chairman, speaking at a press conference in Abuja, said local government elections will take place on December 5th.
The announcement came as Nigeria's military ruler, Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar, was in Cape Town, where he told South Africa's parliament: "We have unequivocally chosen democracy as our preferred option of governance," he said, dressed in flowing blue robes rather than his usual military uniform.
"The programme of transition to civilian and democratic rule which we have just announced will be successfully concluded by May 29th, 1999," he said, restating an earlier pledge. On August 11th, while inaugurating the INEC, Gen Abubakar had promised electoral guidelines would be released in two weeks.
In his broadcast on July 20th, Gen Abubakar had promised to return the west African country to democracy by May 29th, 1999, after a long history of military dictatorship.
The visit to South Africa is aimed at rebuilding relations between the two countries which have been strained since 1995, when Nigeria executed a group of political opponents, despite a plea for clemency by President Nelson Mandela.
The 56-year-old general has promised wide-ranging political, economic and social reforms and will not be a candidate in next year's elections.
Gen Abubakar had a brief meeting yesterday with the South African Deputy President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, and is scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mr Mandela spent nearly 19 of his 27 years in jail for his opposition to apartheid.
In the guidelines on the formation and registration of political parties also released yesterday, the INEC allows broad-based and multiple political parties with certain limits.
"The name, slogan or motto, and the identifying symbols and colours of the association, shall not have any ethnic, religious, professional or other sectional connotation," the commission said.
Gen Abubakar took power on June 9th, hours after the death of his predecessor, Gen Sani Abacha, whose promises to introduce democracy had drawn widespread scepticism.