The challenges of the transition to democracy in a growing country: the “japa” wave of economic and political instability in the Nigerian government
The population of Nigeria, currently the sixth- largest in the world, could be tied with the United States as the third biggest by 2050, according to estimates by the United Nations. The future of the country will be important around the world.
Two-thirds of the population now live in poverty and almost half of young people are unemployed, with millions of job losses since outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari’s government took office in 2015. The value of Nigerian currency, the naira, has fallen while inflation has gone up and oil production has gone down.
Some parts of the country have experienced terrorist activity, which has affected daily life in ways unseen before. There are continuous threats from terrorists and Islamist groups in the north and central regions of Nigeria, and from secessionist groups in the southeast. The number of kidnapping attacks around the country has soared, rising as the economy has worsened.
Bleak prospects for a young population with a median age of under 19 have spurred a “japa” wave — rising numbers seeking to leave the country in search of a better life.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1158978511/nigeria-election
Tinubu Obi and the Obiients: the most recent women’s political contests in the Nigerian Parliament dominated by a corrupting figure
With only one woman, there are 18 candidates and three of them matter the most. The front-runners are two older figures who have dominated politics for a generation, and then a slightly younger candidate who has blown open the race, threatening to pull off a major upset.
Tinubu is currently in the lead with 39% of the vote, with votes still being counted. Peter Obi of the Labour Party is third on the list of candidates for the People’s Democratic Party.
He was elected governor in 1999 and since then, has been credited with helping turn Lagos into one of the biggest economies in Africa. And he’s hailed as a power broker, instrumental in helping President Buhari come to power, and now believes it’s his moment.
But to his detractors, he’s a corrupting figure, wielding outsize control over politics in Lagos and the southwest, and dogged by questions over his age, health and the source of his vast wealth. In 1992, the U.S. government accused him in a lawsuit of laundering proceeds from heroin trafficking, and he eventually reached a settlement.
Yet he has also faced challenges. His candidacy has caused some splits within his party, which is usually between the north and south of Nigeria. It was supposed to be a southerner. He’s also faced multiple corruption allegations in the U.S. Senate investigators said that one of his wives helped him transfer more than $40 million in “suspect funds” into the U.S. from offshore corporations. Some of the money was alleged to be bribes paid by German company Siemens AG, which pleaded guilty to bribery charges. Abubakar has always denied any wrongdoing.
Obiients, a grassroots movement of Obi’s followers, lit up the election campaign. Many young people, whose political awakening was the major “End SARS” protests in 2020 against police brutality, are backing him and voting for the first time. He’s an outsider to defeat two more established political parties in the election, and most polls show he will win.
It’s possible the election could go to a runoff vote — for the first time in Nigerian history. To win an election outright, a candidate has to win the most votes, with at least 25% in at least 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states. All the candidates have strong support in one part of the country but face an uphill battle in another. There’s a chance of a second round as the race will likely come down to three main candidates.
Don’t rule out a late postponement, it’s possible. Both of the last two elections were postponed. In 2019, this was announced just hours before polls opened, with officials citing insecurity in parts of the country. Violence appears to be a bigger challenge now in some parts of the country, particularly in the southeast, where armed groups have stepped up attacks targeting police and election material.
There had been a problem with two polling units getting to vote in Saturday’s elections, and voters were still trying to cast their ballot on Sunday at a school in Lagos.
Chidi Nwagwa told CNN that he arrived at 10am. Polling materials were late and we set up to start voting. Some thugs arrived and started hitting people with chairs. I was hit several times with a chair. There was a doctor who helped us. A pregnant woman and a lot of other women were attacked. They smashed her phone when she was knocked down.
Alicia Gberikon said: “There was harassment and if you had a phone that was a crime. People had their phones smashed and were beaten. It was very frightening.
The frustration of the INEC chairperson following the results of the Saturday election in a country with a large-scale non-profit observatory
The elections were disappointing for a non-profit civic group that deployed over 3000 observers across the country. “There’s a sense of disappointment, quite frankly, with the way this process has gone. Clearly, we’ve not overcome and resolved, perennially our logistical challenges with elections,” Samson Itodo, Yiaga’s Executive Director told CNN.
Yiaga was concerned as of Saturday night that the results had not been uploaded to the electoral commission’s voting portal.
The process is not in line with the guidelines for the elections. But it also casts doubt on the integrity of this entire process,” Itodo said.
The chairman of the electoral commission spoke to the country briefly at a media press conference on Sunday but did not address the issues around results transmission.
There were pockets of violence across the nation, and electoral machines called Bimodal Voter accreditation system was lost in some of those disruptions.
The main Nigerian opposition parties are calling for a rerun of the country’s presidential election due to the violence and rigging that happened on Saturday.
The monitors from the European Union said in a statement that lack of transparency and operational failures decreased trust in the process and challenged the right to vote.
The race in the most populous country is one of the most tightly fought in years with three prominent candidates. It came at a critical moment for the country, which has been through a depressing eight years in which the economy and security have deteriorated.
The African Democratic Congress, Labour, and the People’s Democratic Party held a news conference on Tuesday to criticize the election.
The parties said they have no faith in the electoral process or the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and called for the removal of its chairperson.
Julius Abure said that the process was irretrievably compromised and that they had lost faith in the entire process. “We demand that this sham of an election should be immediately canceled and new elections should be announced.”
Africa Check claims the results uploaded to I NEC were backed up with incorrect evidence from different polling units.
“Let me assure Nigerian people that we’ll do what we can within the law to review issues about the conduct of elections,” said the INEC chair. To review where review is absolutely necessary.”
INEC’s First Day of Preliminary Elections: Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) Revisited
The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used during the presidential polls for the first time was hailed by the electoral commission as an improved method to verify voters, using facial recognition and biometric data, and a faster way for electoral officials to post the results. INEC had promised to upload votes directly from each polling unit to its website and that it would boost the credibility of the results.
On Sunday, INEC said it regretted “technical hitches” it blamed for the slow pace of results uploaded to its viewing portal and said it was not due to any “intrusion or sabotage.”
A number of areas, including the commercial capital, the central state of Kogi and the southern oil rich state of Rivers, were affected by incidents of violence, ballot box snatching and voter intimidation.
After about 75% of results were announced by INEC, Obi is currently trailing with 23% of the vote. In Lagos, the Labour candidate overturned the stronghold of Tinubu, who was a former governor of the state.
The winner could be announced in a few days, as the vote count continued Tuesday. There are likely to be challenges to the results in court.