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By Tume Ahemba

LAGOS, June 5 (Reuters) - Political rivals attacked the car convoy of a Nigerian state governor opposed to President Olusegun Obasanjo in the latest eruption of pre-election violence rocking the country, witnesses said on Wednesday.

Governor Abdullahi Kure of Niger State, a member of Obasanjo's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was unhurt in the attack at the party's headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.

Witnesses said thugs, suspected of being loyalists of the president, rained rocks on Kure's convoy, smashing the windscreen of his official car as he left a party meeting.

"There was a rowdy behaviour involving hundreds of people as the governor's convoy left the party secretariat after a meeting yesterday," a senior official of the PDP told Reuters.

"Several vehicles were smashed but the governor was not hurt and he just managed to escape," said the official who asked not to be named.

It was not clear what triggered the attack, but it was the latest incident of mounting political violence as Africa's most populous country heads for its first nationwide elections since military rule ended in 1999.

Unrest has been on the upswing since Obasanjo declared in April that he would be seeking re-election for a second and final four-year term next year.

Kure is a vocal critic of the president and has publicly opposed Obasanjo's bid for re-election.

PARTY LACKS COHESION

Political analysts say Obasanjo's party lacks cohesion because it is not driven by any ideology but was formed by politicians of divergent convictions for the sole purpose of winning power.

Cracks emerged soon after the party swept to power at the centre and in the states in 1999.

Poll-related violence is the latest headache for Nigeria, which has been gripped by religious and ethnic clashes over the past three years. More than 10,000 people have been killed across the multi-ethnic country of over 120 million people.

Many Nigerians are bracing for wider trouble because Nigeria has not been able to organise violence-free elections under civilian authorities since independence from Britain in 1960.

Attempts to transfer power from one elected government to another foundered in the mid-1960s and in 1983, leading to military coups in each instance.

Successful elections in 1979 and 1999 were both supervised by the military before they relinquished power.

An early test for Nigeria comes on August 10 when municipal council polls are scheduled nationwide.

On May 29, Obasanjo marked three years of democratic rule with a chilling warning over looming anarchy and "pervasive violence" around the forthcoming elections. Nampa-Reuters

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