2023 presidential election: More sour than sweet

The 2023 presidential election was one every Nigerian looked forward to. Whether you like talking about politics or not does not matter because, at some point, you are dragged into the election conversation either on social media or elsewhere.

We were all involved, the young, the old, literate and illiterate, male and female, those living in the country and those in the diaspora, it was the turn of everybody with no one left out.

Now the presidential election has come and gone with so much left to be told, stories that we may not finish telling for many years to come.

There are four things I observed from the 2023 presidential election, yes, five are of concern to me.

1. Still low turnout

Despite the initial hope that Nigerians are more interested in government today and would come out and vote more than ever before, that was far from the reality on election day as the presidential election suffered low turnout as usual.

One would have expected that as the Nigerian population increases, the number of eligible voters will increase from what we had in the past elections, except maybe our over 200 million population figure is false and miscalculated. One would also expect that with the excitement on social media about the election and the perceived desire to elect a much better president to move the country forward, people will come out in large numbers to cast their votes.

But that was not the case. The total number of votes cast in the 2023 election was just 24,025,940 out of the 93 million registered voters. In fact, the number of votes we had in the entire voting process this year is lower than what late president Umar Musa Yar’Adua alone got in 2007. The former Katsina state governor polled 24.6 million votes to win the election. And that figure was only 70 percent of the total votes. Sixteen years later, when the population of Nigeria is believed to have increased, the number of voters ironically dropped.

For instance, there are over seven million registered voters in Lagos, with over four million PVCs collected, but how many accredited voters did we have? How many vote counts did we have, just a little over one million? So where are those population statistics coming from?

The fact still remains that most Nigerians only talk about bad governance but are not interested in practically changing the bad government. Talk is cheap, action speaks louder than words.

2. Not free and fair

An election is seen to be free and fair when there are political freedoms and fair processes leading up to the vote, a fair count of eligible voters who cast a ballot, and acceptance of election results by all parties. Unfortunately, this is the opposite of what we had in the 2023 presidential election.

There were reports of ballot snatching and destruction of election materials in Lagos and other places. People were bullied and forced to vote against their will in some places. In some other places, elections were falsified and some were not even recorded.

A friend of mine told me how their polling unit was attacked by thugs and armed hoodlums. Voting was over and INEC officials were counting results so as to enter them into the BVAS machine, but a top official of the LGA came, a woman for that matter, insisted that INEC officials must not enter the final result on the machine.

As the argument was going on with party agents, the woman left, but about ten minutes later, she came back with about five vehicles carrying armed thugs. Everybody scampered for safety while the attackers destroyed election materials and made away with the BVAS machine.

Also, the final result of the election as announced by INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu was not accepted by major opposition parties. This is not a free and fair election.

3. Security is handicapped

Prior to the election, President Muhammadu Buhari assured Nigerians of safety, the police and even the army made the same pledge before the election day, but what did we get? Voters were attacked in some places without defence from the security agencies.

Nigerians were forced to fight for themselves against thugs and defend their votes. A woman in Lagos was badly injured and left with a bleeding face just because she wanted to perform her civic right by voting for her preferred candidate.

Police officers at polling units could not do anything. They watched helplessly as Nigerians were attacked, ballot boxes snatched and election results were falsified.

4. Was INEC really ready?

The many failures of INEC were the high point of the 2023 presidential election. They had assured Nigerians of their readiness to conduct a credible election, with reliance on technology and manpower, but they failed, manpower failed, and BVAS failed.

Election was held in 2019, there were lapses and one will expect INEC to improve on all major grey areas, they had four years to prepare, but if we see a repeat or even worse case of what transpired four years ago in today’s polls then there is an indication of poor preparation.

About 350 billion naira tax-payers money was spent on this election with enough time for preparation, INEC has no excuse to fail. To think that the commission even sent observers to Kenya to monitor their last election, but yet can’t conduct a credible one for itself, is appalling, to say the least.

So much was expected from INEC, if they could not take it a notch further from the last election, they should at least give Nigerians an equal performance. But what we saw on Sunday was three steps backward.

From compromise by some of its officials to the failure to enter results into the BVAS machine, it was really a shambolic and unprofessional show. To make things worse, the commission halted the update of results on its portal for some time, drawing suspicion from many. It was really far from what Mahmood assured us.

5. Nigerians yearning for true democracy

The resilience of millions of Nigerians to vote, against all odds, is highly commendable. For those that came out to vote, we saw their passion, patience, and strong will to exercise their civic rights.

Some even travelled from other parts of the world down to Nigeria just for the purpose of the election. Their courage is highly admired.

For some that came under attacks, we saw their bravery in the face of danger, how they stood firm and defended their votes, and for those that ran for safety, it was only a wise decision to do so.

Hopefully, we will get it right one day, but that will be after another four years.

Israel Ojoko, a writer and content editor, can be reached via [email protected]