Nigerian elections 2023

•Want perpetrators of election violence, manipulation punished •Insist on public naming of govt, party officials who aided fraud Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja Two United States organisations, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) yesterday released a joint final report on the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, saying that the polls were marred by logistical failures. The Joint International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) explained that while there were incremental improvements in election administration, increased competitiveness in the presidential race, quality engagement of youth, among others, the 2023 elections in Nigeria fell short of citizens’ legitimate and reasonable expectations. “Significant logistical, technological, and communications failures by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), divisive rhetoric by political parties, political violence, regional disparities in electoral integrity, instances of vote manipulation, and marginalisation of key populations marred the electoral process and disenfranchised voters negatively impacted on key aspects of the election process,” the Us-sponsored Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) stated. The elections, the NDI and IRI stated, also saw the lowest turnout for national contests in Nigeria’s modern democratic history with only 27 per cent of registered voters participating. The joint observer mission urged the incoming government, lawmakers, INEC, and polit...

Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria – On February 25, Nigerians will go to the polls to elect President Muhammadu Buhari’s replacement as he is serving out the second of his constitutionally permitted two four-year terms. Eighteen candidates are jostling to succeed him as leader of Africa’s biggest economy. Top contenders include Also in the race are the Labour Party’s (LP) (Al Jazeera) Who are the main candidates? Atiku Abubakar The PDP remains Nigeria’s key opposition and Abubakar, a veteran who is on his sixth attempt to be president, is hoping to clinch the presidency and return the party, which was at the helm of affairs from 1999 to 2015, to power. He has hinged his campaign on unifying what remains a divided country and lifting Nigeria’s economy, which has suffered two recessions in four years, out of the doldrums. In Nigeria, which is split almost evenly between Christians and Muslims, there is a gentlemanly agreement between the main parties to share power between north and south, and Christians and Muslims. The outgoing Buhari is a northern Muslim. Abubakar, like Buhari, is a northern Muslim – and ethnic Fulani – from the northeast. He has selected Ifeanyi Okowa, the outgoing governor of Delta State in the south and Christian, as his running mate. (Al Jazeera) Bola Tinubu Tinubu and Atiku, former political and business associates, were among the founding fathers of the APC but square up on Saturday on different sides, with each hoping to pull one over the other. The former,...