By Barry Moody

ABUJA, April 16 (Reuters) - Results from Nigeria's state elections showed the ruling party racing to a landslide victory on Monday but the opposition denounced widespread vote rigging and said the poll was a sham.

The official electoral body said the People's Democratic Party (PDP) won 26 of 32 states for which results were announced after Saturday's poll for state governors, which was marred by widespread abuses and violence that killed around 50 people.

The governorship election in 36 states sets the stage for a presidential poll next weekend and is seen as a strong indicator of both the conduct and result of that vote to choose a successor to President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Western diplomats said the presidential poll, pitting the PDP's Umaru Yar'Adua against Muhammadu Buhari of the opposition All Nigeria People's Party, would be tipped heavily towards the governing party, unless protests gathered more steam this week.

"We reject the entire election as a sham," said Lai Mohammed, spokesman for the opposition Action Congress party.

Dozens of mostly opposition candidates were disqualified just before the vote because of controversial fraud indictments.

Members of local and international observer missions said elections in between four and six states were so compromised they should be rerun. The observers are expected to make formal statements later on Monday.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it had cancelled results from two states, Imo and Enugu, and they would be rerun within weeks.

The announcement of results was greeted by violence on Sunday and Monday, with youths burning electoral and local government offices in the northern Kaduna and Katsina states, the state-run news agency said.

Opposition supporters blocked roads to protest against a PDP victory in the central Kogi and southern Edo and Ondo states, local media reported.

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Police in the northern opposition stronghold of Kano imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew before the results were even announced.

Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer returned to democracy in 1999 after decades of army rule and these elections should lead to the first handover from one elected president to another since independence in 1960.

Saturday's vote was marred by a multitude of rigging techniques, including the abduction of electoral officers and falsification of results, international observers said.

The most common abuse was theft of ballots and result sheets, which explained the widespread absence of voting materials at polling stations.

"In several key states, the election has no credibility," said Chris Albin-Lackey of Human Rights Watch.

"If the presidential elections next weekend show the same pattern, it will be impossible to talk about progress to democracy and the rule of law, eight years after the end of military rule."

Dozens of people were killed in political violence in the months leading up to the poll, and the disqualifications and poor logistical preparations had already cast doubts over the vote's credibility.

"INEC has made an ass of itself," said Bolaji Akinyemi, a former foreign minister, lawyer and academic.

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