Nigeria Content Online

Provisional results from South Sudan’s referendum
show that almost 99 percent of voters have chosen independence, the
referendum commission’s website said on Sunday after 98.7 percent of
the votes had been counted.

The referendum was promised under a 2005 north-south
peace deal which ended Africa’s longest civil war. A vote for secession
was widely expected because of persistent tension between the mainly
Muslim north and southerners who mainly Christian or follow traditional
religions.

“As of now, 100 percent of the North and (overseas)
votes and 98.7 percent of the South votes have been processed,” the
commission’s website (southernsudan2011.com/) said. The provisional and
incomplete results showed that 98.81 percent of voters wanted
secession, it said, confirming earlier returns. The votes need to be
sent to the commission’s headquarters in Khartoum for checking before
the preliminary results are announced in a week. The south is likely to
declare independence on July 9.

Exactly how the two will disentangle their economies,
share oil wealth and demarcate the border remains to be decided. The
disputed central Abyei region remains the major sticking point as both
sides claim the area, which saw deadly clashes between tribes during
the week-long referendum this month.

Most analysts believe neither north nor south wants or can afford a
return to all-out war. The south’s budget is 98 percent derived from
oil, most of which is produced in the south, but which is refined,
transported and administered by the north. Both sides have used proxy
militias which could provoke wider clashes. The civil war between north
and south, fuelled by differences over oil, ideology, ethnicity and
religion, claimed an estimated 2 million lives and destabilised much of
east Africa.