March 30, 2023/CSL Research
Amidst allegations of widespread violence, voter intimidation, and INEC’s perceived incompetence, Nigeria concluded its electioneering process across all the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. The 2023 general elections was one of the most controversial since Nigeria attained independence in 1999, the seventh in the cycle. It was also the election with the lowest turn-out despite an increase in voter registration by 11% when compared to 2019. The presidential election had about 25. 2 million voters with about one million votes voided compared to 87.2 million registered voters as reported by INEC. The president-elect polled about 8 million votes, while the PDP and Labour party candidates polled about 13 million votes combined. The governorship and state assembly elections were no different, as voter apathy characterized the elections and there were also widespread
reports of violence and voter intimidation.
Many local and international observers condemned the 25 February Presidential/National Assembly Elections and the 18 March Governorship and State House of Assembly Elections. The populace had great expectations for the 2023 general elections with the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) technology by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), which many generally believed would solve the problem of rigging and help improve the country’s electoral process, especially given the assurances by the commission’s chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu that the election results will be transmitted electronically and in real-time to the commission’s central server. However, INEC failed to deliver on its promise as the results of the Presidential and some state’s governorship elections were not uploaded electronically as promised, giving room for alleged manipulations and falsifications of figures.
Despite the many irregularities that characterized the 2023 general elections, the emergence of political parties like the Labour party and the New Nigerian people’s party (NNPP) into mainstream politics breaking the duopoly of the APC and the PDP is a bright spot in the rather bleak electioneering process. On the back of the youth-backed ‘obidient wave’, the labour party emerged with 1 governorship seat, 8 senatorial seats, and 34 house of representative seats, making them the third most popular party in the next national assembly. The NNPP backed by the ‘kwankwassiya’ movement won 1 governorship seat, 2 senatorial seats and 18 house of representative seats. Also, the fact that notable politicians like Bello Mattawalle of Zamfara, Samuel Ortom of Benue, and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia lost their seats to previously unknown names are pointers that the choice of the people have begun to matter. That said, we note that while the elections might be over, matters arising from the elections persist, as the battle moves from the ballots boxes to the courtrooms. With the inauguration date set for 29 May 2023, we may not be at the end of Nigeria’s electioneering process yet.
