#2023 Elections: Nigerians vote to choose Buhari’s successor

Nigerians are heading to the polls today to vote in a new president after enduring a tumultuous eight-year term of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is leaving office in May.

Elections will also be held for 459 Senate and House of Representatives seats across the 36 states and Abuja.

It is the seventh national elections since the end of military rule in 1999 and is expected to be the most competitive and one with the largest turn out in the last 24 years.

Faced with widespread insecurity and a crushing economic hardship, a record 93.5 million voters have registered to choose among 18 candidates. The Independent National Electoral Commission said 87.2 million cards have been collected, meaning more than six million people will not be able to vote.

The Buhari administration says it has done well especially in building new infrastructure, but critics say the president is about to leave the country worse than he met it in 2015 when he took office after defeating incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

In the last eight years, insecurity has expanded beyond the northeast where the insurgent Boko Haram group has operated since 2009, to the northwest where deadly gangs kill and kidnap residents and travellers for hefty ransoms, and to the southeast where deadly attacks linked to a separatist movement have unsettled a once peaceful region.

The nation faces currency and fuel shortages, record unemployment and inflation, a massive debt burden, and endemic corruption.

– Front runners

The three front-runners in the poll are Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC, Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition party PDP, and Peter Obi of the relatively smaller Labour Party. Several polls have tipped Obi to win the election.

Obi’s disruptive campaign has found great following amongst young and professional voters disillusioned by the two main parties. Analysts say Obi’s emergence makes the poll the most unpredictable since 1999. All three candidates are seen as potential winners.

Atiku and Obi have promised major economic reforms, in contrast with Tinubu’s suggestion of moderate adjustments.

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There are fears violence may affect voting in some parts of the country. On Wednesday, a senatorial candidate for the opposition Labour Party, Oyibo Chukwu, was shot dead in Enugu State while returning from the campaign trail. INEC has suspended the national assembly election in Enugu East following the killing.

The chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, said the electoral body was prepared for the polls nonetheless and there will be no postponement.

“Reports around the country indicate that materials are being delivered to the local governments as planned,” Mahmood Yakubu was quoted by the BBC a saying. “We’re exactly where we wanted to be in terms of preparation.”

Concerns about vote buying rose further on Friday after police arrested a federal lawmaker in Port Harcourt with half a million dollars and a list those the money was to be shared to.

The government has ordered the closure of all land borders for Saturday’s vote starting from midnight for 24 hours, to stop foreign nationals from trying to vote.