Nigeria sets presidential poll for Jan 22

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria will hold presidential polls on January 22, the electoral commission said on Tuesday, putting pressure on President Goodluck Jonathan to say whether he will stand and leaving little time for badly-needed reforms.

Parliamentary polls will be on January 15, with governorship elections in the 36 states rounding off the process on January 29, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) information chief Solomon Soyebi told a news conference.

The timeframe for primaries begins on Saturday and runs to the end of October, while public campaigning will officially begin on October 17, according to the timetable.

Jonathan has not yet said whether he will run for re-election in Africa's most populous nation, but the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) will now be under pressure to decide on its candidate, with polling day just four months away.

An election bid by Jonathan, who is from the southern Niger Delta, could prove divisive due to an agreement in the PDP that power rotates between the Muslim north and Christian south every two terms, meaning the next president should be a northerner.

The PDP has said Jonathan has the right to run, because he was previously vice president on a joint ticket with northern President Umaru Yar'Adua, who died mid-way through his first term earlier this year.

But the party also said that it would uphold the principle of "zoning" and that other candidates were free to contest at its primaries.

Recent announcements by Jonathan's administration, from pledges to end chronic power shortages to long-awaited reforms to the energy sector, have looked more like campaign pledges, heightening expectations he will stand.

But two northern candidates -- former military leader Ibrahim Babangida and former vice president Atiku Abubakar -- have already declared they would run against Jonathan to seek the PDP nomination for 2011.

LITTLE TIME FOR REFORM

The current presidential term began on May 29, 2007 and the polls had originally been scheduled for April next year.

Parliament passed a constitutional amendment in July bringing the date forward to allow any legal challenges to the outcome to be settled before the beginning of the new term.

The accelerated timetable leaves INEC little time to forge ahead with a badly needed overhaul of the electoral register, a reform seen as vital if the country is to avoid a repeat of its last chaotic polls three and half years ago.

"Unless the Presidency and National Assembly take immediate steps to correct the mistake of scheduling elections for January then they will be guilty of leading Nigeria into another electoral minefield," said Inemo Samiama, director of Nigerian civil society group Stakeholder Democracy Network.

"They know well that there is nowhere in the world where a country of our size has been given the task of registering voters and fully preparing elections in just over three months."

An electoral roll riddled with fictitious names and omitting legitimate voters was one of the main problems at the 2007 polls, which were so marred by ballot stuffing and intimidation that observers deemed them not to have been credible.

The timetable gives INEC until November 14 to register voters and a further few weeks to hear objections before a final electoral roll is published on December 16.

Nigerian lawmakers last month approved a planned bond issue to fund an 88 billion naira ($585 million) budget for the electoral commission to overhaul voter lists and buy additional ballot boxes ahead of the polls.

INEC has said the spending plan was largely for the purchase of 120,000 electronic voter registration machines, including laptop computers, finger print scanners, cameras and printers to issue voter cards, but analysts fear time is running out.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Philippa Fletcher)