The Status of Nigeria’s February 25 Elections

AFP/Courtesy The South Africa

It is believed that young peo­ple, most of them under 35 years of age, will help decides the 2023 Niger­ian elections.

Edi­tor’s Notes: Nige­ri­ans go to the polls on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 25 to elect the coun­try’s next pres­i­dent. The top three con­tenders in the elec­tion are Peter Obi, rep­re­sent­ing the Labour Par­ty, for­mer vice-pres­i­dent Atiku Abubakar who is rep­re­sent­ing the Peo­ple’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party(PDP), and Bola Tin­ubu, rep­re­sent­ing the All Pro­gres­sive Congress(APC) par­ty. Cur­rent Pres­i­dent, Muham­madu Buhari is step­ping down after serv­ing two terms in office. 

Deciding Nigeria’s Future

Accord­ing to the World Bank, Nige­ria has a pop­u­la­tion of over 200 mil­lion. This rep­re­sents the most pop­u­lat­ed African coun­try. It is the con­ti­nen­t’s largest democ­ra­cy, as well as Africa’s largest econ­o­my. Nige­ria is pro­ject­ed to have 380 mil­lion peo­ple by 2050, with the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion being young peo­ple below 35 years old. 

Nige­ri­an’s young peo­ple are fac­ing chal­lenges such as the lack of socio-eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties. They are also faced with threats posed by armed con­flict, as well as gen­der mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In the upcom­ing Feb­ru­ary 28 elec­tions, they have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to address these issues through the lead­ers they select.

The Adoption of Elections Technology in Africa

The elec­tion is unique. Nige­ria joins oth­er African coun­tries — Kenya, Mali, and Soma­lia — in the use of elec­tron­ic vot­ing sys­tems. Com­pared to pre­vi­ous elec­tions, Niger­ian vot­ers will use the Bimodal Vot­er Accred­i­ta­tion Sys­tem (BVAS) in an effort to stop elec­tion mal­prac­tices such as rig­ging. The use of the BVAS will aid in pre­vent­ing elec­tion fraud. It is a pos­i­tive step ahead in the appli­ca­tion of tech­nol­o­gy for the country.

To help pre­vent elec­tion fraud, we’re the sys­tem uses both fin­ger­prints and facial recog­ni­tion for vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Vot­er results will be uploaded to the Inde­pen­dent Nation­al Elec­toral Com­mis­sion (INEC) por­tal for all to see.

Elections Help Advance Democracy 

Elec­tions are an impor­tant aspect of Nige­ri­a’s demo­c­ra­t­ic tra­jec­to­ry. If mis­man­aged, it could lead to vio­lence. Pre­vi­ous­ly there have been reports and accu­sa­tions of rig­ging by politicians.

The Feb­ru­ary 25 vote will aid in decid­ing the future of Nige­ria. It is a sig­nif­i­cant step in the dis­play of Africa’s democ­ra­cy. If no can­di­date gets the largest num­ber of votes cast in at least 24 of Nige­ri­a’s 36 states, the elec­tion will result in a run-off.