[7] However, international observers declared the election to be "orderly, free and fair" in the entire southern half of the country.

[15] Following a bombing in Abuja during Nigeria's 50th anniversary of Independence celebrations and the arrest and interrogation of the Director General of Babangida campaign, Raymond Dokpesi, there were calls for him to quit the race.

Even before the blasts, however, some of his former loyalists, popularly called "IBB Boys," apparently asked him to quit the presidential race to avoid being rubbished by a non-General.

[21][22] In September 2010, the election commission requested a postponement of the polls citing the need for more time to overhaul the national electoral register.

On 1 October 2010, the "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta", a militant group, claimed responsibility for dual car bombings during Nigeria's 50th independence anniversary celebrations in the capital that had killed at least 12.

On Christmas Eve, 24 December 2010 a series of bombs went off in villages near Jos, the main city of the Plateau state, killing 32 people and leaving 74 others in critical condition, and on 31 December 2010 a bomb exploded in an open-air beer garden and market at army barracks in Abuja, killing at least four and wounding at least 21.

A speaker for the "Open Society Justice Initiative" stated the only comparable episodes of violence occurred in the mid-1960s and early 1980s, which both led to government overthrow.