Policy Impact: How governorship poll shift will affect Nigerians

Nigeria’s electoral commission on Wednesday announced a surprise postponement of governorship and state assembly elections.

The polls, previously scheduled for March 11, will now hold a week later on March 18. The Independent National Electoral Commission says it needs more time to reconfigure the electronic machines it used to verify voters’ data during the Feb. 25 presidential election.

Opposition parties are demanding access to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to prove their claim the presidential election result was doctored, but Inec says it has to reset the machines first for the next poll. It has pledged to preserve all data.

On Wednesday, the court of appeal in Abuja gave the electoral commission approval to proceed, but Inec said the decision came late. It would have just two days to reset over 1760,000 machines, hence the need to reschedule.

If the elections proceeded, the 2023 election cycle would have been the first since 2015 to be concluded as scheduled. Inec delayed presidential polls in 2015 and 2019, each with great costs for the economy and entire country.

The latest shift will have costs too. University students will stay longer at home, for example, as reopening may be delayed. The punishing naira notes crisis is likely to continue. There will be more.

Guest Perspective

Afolabi Olowookere, chief economist and managing director at the Ibadan-based policy analysis firm, Analysts Data Services and Resources Ltd (ADSR), shared his evaluation of the situation with Pluboard.

“Sub-national level political activities have direct socioeconomic effect on the people and are largely felt on a wider scope than the national.  Evidence has shown that gubernatorial elections have more impact on the economy compared to the presidential election due to its grassroots nature.

“This is because elections at the state level politics have more grassroots engagements and cut across micro and macro level of economic ​​activities.  In the build-up to the elections, governance and activities that aid economic and business engagements such as contract awards, payment of contractors, and in some cases, payment of salaries and wages etc are suspended with focus on the elections and electioneering.

“Also, private sector activities are scaled down due to uncertainties of the elections.  For instance, banks and other commercial activities are skeletal and close much earlier than usual.

“Activities in the nation’s tertiary institutions have been suspended due to the elections as well as private primary and secondary schools and activities tied to them are suspended as well.

“Therefore, with the postponement, the expected resumption of full business and economic activities after elections is delayed and the effect of this is further increased and expanded.

“In addition, it is important to state that the seeming calmness around banks and financial institution and the nation in general as a result the current cash crunch may be short lived after the guber poll if something is not done to address the issue.

“This is because the actors are currently engaged by the politicians going into the elections and attention is focused on winning the elections.  However, after the election, there is every likelihood that the losers would release their foot soldiers to resume the crisis and attribute it to the cash crunch.”