Parliamentary elections were held in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

on 9 April 2011.

Dates

The election was originally scheduled to be held on 2 April. However it was later postponed to 4 April on the originally scheduled day of the election itself as voters turned up in the morning to see ballots had not yet arrived. The next day Attahiru Jega, the head of the electoral commission, said that "The commission weighed all the options and considered the wide-ranging counsel of Nigerians and decided to reschedule all the elections as follows: Saturday, April 9, senate and house of representatives elections; Saturday, April 16, presidential elections; Tuesday, April 26, state houses of assembly and governorship elections. Some parties have said they won't take part. Without political parties there was no election so INEC has to listen to their comments." This comes after Jega was allocated US$570m budget in August 2010 to overhaul voter lists and acquire more ballot boxes.

Contesting parties

The incumbent People's Democratic Party ran against the

Action Congress of Nigeria The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), formerly known as Action Congress (AC), was a Nigerian political party formed via the merger of a faction of Alliance for Democracy, the Justice Party, the Advance Congress of Democrats, and several othe ...

and the

Congress for Progressive Change The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) was a political party founded in Nigeria in 2009 in preparation for the April 2011 elections. It was the 63rd political party to be founded in the country. In February 2013, the party merged with the ...

, amongst others. The CPC appeared to make inroads in the north.

Campaign

The people living in the oil-producing

Niger Delta The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states, which include: all six states from the South South geopolitic ...

sought political representation that would be strong enough to be able to deal with a cleanup of the polluted parts of their region. In

Kano State Kano State (Hausa: ''Jihar Kano''جىِهَر كَنوُ) (Fula: Leydi Kano 𞤤𞤫𞤴𞤣𞤭 𞤳𞤢𞤲𞤮𞥅 ) is one of the 36 states of Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajee ...

, traditional voting along sectarian lines was seen to change in favour of cross-voting for candidates who seemed most capable of delivering on promises of alleviating poverty.

Conduct

In December 2010, bombs went off in

Yenegoa Yenagoa is a Local Government Area and capital city of Bayelsa State, southern Nigeria. It is located at the southern part of the country at coordinates . The LGA has an area of 706 km² and a population of 352,285 at the 2006 census. Th ...

Bayelsa State Bayelsa is one of the states in the South-South region of Nigeria, located in the core of the Niger Delta region. Bayelsa State was created in 1996 and was carved out from Rivers State, making it one of the newest states in the federation. Yena ...

during a gubernatorial campaign rally. There were also bombings and shooting in the north blamed on Boko Haram. Politicians and police said that the campaign of violence aimed to disrupt the election. Again on 3 March assailants in Abuja attacked a People's Democratic Party rally with a bomb killing three and wounding 21. The police said that the attack occurred just after the state governor Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu made an address and left. The day before the election a bomb went off by the National Electoral Commission offices in Suleja outside the capital Abuja killing at least eight people. The bombing followed a shooting in Borno state that killed four people, including a member of the incumbent Peoples' Democratic Party. On the day of the election itself another bomb went off in

Maiduguri Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the ''Firki'' swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maiduguri was founded in 1907 as a mil ...

. Yushua Shuaib of the National Emergency Management Agency said there was a possibility of casualties. At least two were later reported to have died. During the campaigning season up to a 100 people were reported to have died in bombings and shootings.

Results

Turnout was reported to be low in the commercial capital of

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national capital of Nigeria until December 1991 fo ...

. Voting in the north continued the next day as there was a high turnout. Preliminary results indicated that the incumbent People's Democratic Party would lose their parliamentary strength. The Action Congress of Nigeria made gains in the southwest, where Lagos is located and the Congress for Progressive Change made gains in the north. High-profile losses included the PDP's Dimeji Bankole, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and former president Olusegun Obasanjo's daughter in the Senate. However the PDP still had just over half of the one-fifth of the seats declared at the time. Polling in 15 Senatorial districts and 48 federal constituencies were delayed again until 26 April 2011 due to logistical problems.

Senate

House of Representatives

Results by state

Federal Capital Territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

* Kwara State *

Nasarawa State Nasarawa State is a state in the North Central region of Nigeria, bordered to the east by the states of Taraba and Plateau, to the north by Kaduna State, to the south by the states of Kogi and Benue, and to the west by the Federal Capital Ter ...

Taraba State ) , image_map = Nigeria - Taraba.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location of Taraba State in Nigeria , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , ...