Nigeria elects a new president
Nigeria, Africa's largest country by population and the continent's largest democracy, held a historic presidential election to decide its 16th president and 4th president since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999. It was a grueling campaign season, and out of 18 total aspirants, only three were real contenders.
<PERSON>, the candidate of the Labour Party, who ultimately polled third in the elections, raised more than a few eyebrows when he decamped from the main opposition party, the People's Democratic Party, a few days before the party's presidential primary in late May 2022. A couple of days later, he picked up his nomination form for the office of the president under the LP, an obscure party at the time.
<PERSON>, former vice president of the country and a perennial presidential aspirant, once again emerged as the candidate of the PDP. The ruling party, All Progressives Congress, held its National Convention a few days after PDP's convention. The sitting president, <PERSON>, is constitutionally restrained from running again, having spent two terms as a civilian president. APC's National Convention produced <PERSON>, erstwhile governor of Lagos, the country's commercial hub, as its candidate for the 2023 election.
In the ensuing months, each candidate traversed the length and breadth of the country, canvassing for votes and preaching their ideas and ideals. Over that period, the Labour Party strategically built a core, loyal base on social media, with Mr <PERSON>'s populist manifesto particularly appealing to the youths in a country with a 33% unemployment rate and over 130 million living in multidimensional poverty.
By the time the election came around in February 2023, it had become obvious that the LP candidate would not be a pushover. 892
Hence, the presidential election ended up being a three-horse race rather than the usual two-horse battle between PDP and APC. In fact, many opinion polls gave him the win in a high voter turnout scenario. However, at just under 30%, voter turnout was disappointingly far below expectation.
Experts have explained that the innovative (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System) BVAS technology might be responsible for this low turnout. The technology made it impossible for people whose identities cannot be verified to vote. This development differed from what used to obtain in past elections, where multiple voting, ghost voting, and result-doctoring were fairly common.
Also, the cash crunch—the federal government announced a currency redesign policy to mop up the money in circulation and checkmate vote-buying and money laundering just a few months before the election—could have played a part.
In the end, the candidate of the ruling APC emerged victorious with a slender plurality (less than 36%) of the total votes cast. Many observers noted that the process was flawed and not entirely transparent. Subsequently, the two runners-up have taken to the courts to challenge the outcome of the election. 609