BY REUBEN ABATI
Nigeria held its Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, February 25, 2023 across all the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. It was the most competitive election since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999, the seventh in the cycle. It was also the election with the lowest turn-out: just about 25. 2 million voters voted in that election. Close to one million votes were voided, the declared winner won just about 8.8% of the total votes cast out of 93.4 million registered voters, with a collated figure of 87.2 million registered voters. Many commentators have attributed the low voter turn-out to voter suppression, voter intimidation and the scarcity of money and fuel, although those may not have been serious reasons for voter apathy. The people were enthusiastic, but they were disappointed by INEC’s gross incompetence.
In 1999, voter turn-out was 52.3 %; in 2003, over 63 million voters showed up– that is 69.1% turn out in Nigeria’s Presidential and National Assembly elections of that year; in 2007, the reported figure was 57.5%; and in 2011, 53.7%, with the loser in that election – General Buhari getting as many as a little over 15 million votes. In 2015, the turn-out figure dropped to 43.7%; later in 2019, 34. 75%, The bigger point to be made is that Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential election has had the worst turn-out in the whole of Africa in the last decade. In 2017, Rwanda recorded a 98.15% voter turn-out, which was considered the highest in the world.
What we can hold on to is that whereas Nigerians were very enthusiastic about the National Assembly and Presidential elections of February 25, 2023, there were great apprehensions among the people which hindered the eventual outcome of the process. Nigerians now have a President-elect in the person of Senator/Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), with the lowest margin of victory in contemporary Nigerian history. The total number of valid votes in this election is not even up to the total number of votes won by just two candidates in previous elections. But what the law states is that the man with the majority of votes and the highest number of votes in two thirds of the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory is to be declared winner. Section 134 of the 1999 Constitution which addresses this is already a matter of contention in both the public domain and the courts. It would be interesting to see how in the course of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunals, this diminishes or enhances the county’s jurisprudence in that regard.
But for now, what we know is that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC, winner of the Presidential election of February 25. INEC did not also waste time in giving the Certificate of Return to the APC candidate. We have not seen the same haste with the other elections, the National Assembly elections of February 25 and their legislative winners. None of them has received the Certificate of Return the following day, or nine days after. But the President-elect got his post-haste. He has also since embarked on victory laps to key political figures including the President in his home state of Daura, his wife, supported by other APC wives has visited Mrs Aisha Buhari in Aso Villa, and to cap it all, the President-elect has led a delegation to the Oba of Lagos just to say thank you. Tinubu has since moved into the Defence House in Abuja, the holding bay for a President in waiting. By now, he would be receiving daily security briefings from all relevant agencies of state. In terms of optics, Tinubu himself is already hob-nobbing with the international diplomatic community. He is visiting local traditional rulers and taking messages from foreign diplomats. He has done a victory lap of sorts to Lagos and no one should be surprised if he goes to all principal Yoruba towns and kings. He is playing a game of self-affirmation, laying concrete beneath his “Emilokan” (it’s my turn”) declaration. He has not only managed to win the election; he is already seeking to consolidate the gain by playing a fast game ahead of others. He is striving to establish himself as master and owner of the game.
