ICIR
NIGERIA’S registered voters, which the Independent National Electoral Commission has put at 93.5 million, are expected to come out in their numbers in what will be Africa’s biggest election this year.
They will be electing the president and members of the National Assembly on 25 February and governors and members of the State Houses of Assembly on 11 March.
To vote in the elections, Nigerian citizens must be at least 18 years old and must have collected their permanent voter’s card by 5 February. The electoral commission has not yet released the number of people who have collected their cards. The number of collected cards will determine how many people that can be expected to vote.
The logistical challenges for the 2023 elections are huge, given the fact that 18 political parties are contesting, the security environment and the number of contestants at various levels. There are 18 presidential candidates, 1,101 candidates for the Senate and 3,122 candidates vying for federal constituencies in the House of Representatives. The elections will be conducted across 176,606 polling stations.
But the presidential election, a three-horse race, could end in a runoff. Candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress, People’s Democratic Party and the Labour Party command a large national following, as shown by several pre-election polls.
And the cost is huge. Nigeria spends about 2 per cent of its GDP on elections.
Logistics, security challenges and malpractice in past elections have led to a focus on the reform of election administration.
The Electoral Act 2022 has given legal backing for any voter accreditation technology that the electoral commission uses. If any technical device used in the election fails to function and isn’t replaced, the election will be cancelled for that voting station and another scheduled within 24 hours. The law also allows the commission to transmit election results electronically. These steps greatly reduce the ability to rig results, compared with manual methods.
