More than 100 European Union monitors will observe watershed elections in Nigeria next month.
The EU will deploy a total of 106 observers for the polls, starting with the arrival of 10 experts on March 11th to observe the run-up to the parliamentary polls on April 12th and the presidential election a week later.
The announcement came the day the campaign claimed its most high-profile killing yet.
Mr Harry Marshall, who was running former military leader Mr Muhammadu Buhari's presidential campaign in southern Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen today at his home in the capital Abuja.
Opposition officials claimed that he was murdered by his political opponents.
The EU team will stay beyond state assembly elections scheduled for May 3rd. "After the establishment of civilian rule in 1999, these elections are an important test for the state of democracy in Africa's most populous country," a European Commission statement said.
In more than 40 years of independence, Nigeria has never successfully transferred power from one elected civilian regime to another, and the April 19th presidential poll is seen as a key test of its young democracy.
In recent months, dozens of Nigerians have been killed in violent clashes around the country triggered by localised political disputes in the run-up to polling day.
AFP