Months ago, when the Independent National Electoral Commission announced its voter register listed a whopping 93.4 million potential voters, it was an exciting promise of how the elections would go. At the end of the day, the presidential election—which typically attracts more voters—ended up with an underwhelming figure. With all the raucous noise that the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party made about their “structure,” who would have thought that the eventual winner would not even have up to 10 per cent of registered voters and even less than five per cent of the estimated national population?
While the winner can be consoled that he won anyway, that figure is shameful. How democratic is the process of electing a leader representing only a margin of the population? If only such a tiny minority backs him, he is clearly unpopular and will lack the legitimacy he needs to function.
Following the last presidential election,…
