Nigeria as the most populous country on the African continent can be described as the largest democratic country in the region that practices democratic form of government with multi-party system. Since the return of democracy in 1999, the country witnessed seven (7) presidential and gubernatorial elections (i.e. 1999, 2003, 3007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023 respectively), and the recently conducted presidential election on 25 February, 2023 which saw the emergence of Alhaji Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the president elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a clear indication that Nigeria’s democracy has come to stay. But while the holding of free elections is a welcome trope for the democratic project, the elections also raised a number of questions not only about the strength of country’s democracy but also its trajectory.

Despite the fact that the presidential election is an improvement compared to the previous elections, the election was still marred by some yet to be surmounted irregularities; such as suppression of voters, violent, vote buying, late arrival of election officials and election materials, malfunctioning of electoral technology (BVAS) etc. The ilk of regional sentiment, religious bigotry, and ethnic chauvinism also played a central role as campaign strategies to canvass support. Such unusual featuring of ethno-religious identity in the Nigerian politics has of no doubt heightened the tensions.

The run-up
Before the aforementioned election, there were four major contestants, namely Alhaji Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of All Progressive Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) , and Peter Obi of Labor Party (LP) respectively.

Out of the four contestants, the Labor Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi, who is from southern Nigeria, as the only Christian among them, initially thought that, if he secured the support of the entire Christians and his tribe (IGBO), this would be enough to defeat the other three Muslim contestants, believing that, the Muslims would split their votes across these three candidates. Hence, during his campaign Obi was more interested in seeking the support of his tribe and Nigerian Christians in general. Dr Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of NNPP, is a former Kano state Governor and a Muslim from North (Muslim stronghold region), was seen as a candidate whose main concern was not to win the election but rather to make sure that his party gains momentum in presidential, national assembly, gubernatorial, and state assembly elections, particularly in his home state (Kano), and other states in the north. In this regard, most of his campaigning was restricted to the northern states. The ruling party candidate of APC party in the person of Alhaji Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (former Logos State Governor), who is a minority Muslim from the south, picked a majority Muslim from north as his running mate (Vice President), which he thought was the only political option in order to secure the support of the Muslim majority from the North (Muslim stronghold). He thus paid more attention during his campaign in the north convincing majority Muslim in the region that Muslim-Muslim ticket with the support of the northern Muslims was achievable.

Last, but not least, the candidate of the main opposition party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (former Vice President of Nigeria) is a Muslim from north, and his calculation was that, he came from majority Muslim region, and that in order to get the required support, he would need to pick his running mate from Christian’s majority region (south). During his campaign, he was seen telling Nigerians that, his party is the only option for Nigeria’s national integration and unity. Other issues including insecurity, fuel scarcity, Naira redesign and scarcity policy, ethno-religious identity, etc. were some of the key issues which featured heavily during the campaign process aimed at shaping and influencing the voting behavior of the Nigerian electorate.

The Race
Unlike the previous presidential elections that were rescheduled, 2023 presidential election was conducted in Nigeria as scheduled; hence the INEC deserves to be commended on that. However, despite that, during the election, there were a number of issues which put a damper on the proceedings. Reportedly these issues ranged from late arrival of election materials, suppression of voters, vote buying, and the malfunctioning of bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS), to violence carried out by actors affiliated to political parties, late start of voting in various poling units across the country, and the late activation of the INEC result viewing portal (IREV).

Another worrisome aspect of the election was the low level of voter turnout. On the whole, out of over 93.4 Million voters that registered, only 87.2 Million collected their permanent voter’s cards, and of the collected cards, the turnout was a mere 29% (24.9 Million), the lowest since independence of Nigeria in 1960. Though voter apathy is probably responsible for some of those Nigerians’ decision not to cast a vote, other conditions on voting day have also presumably prevented a significant portion of them from effectively participating.

In any case, by the end of the race, the former governor of Lagos state of All Progressive Congress (APC) Alhaji Ahmed Bola Asiwaju Tinubu was declared winner, scoring a total of 8,794,726 of votes to defeat his closest opponent of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who emerged second with 6,984,520 votes. Meanwhile, the LP candidate came third on one hand with 6,101,533 votes, and the NNPP candidate who scored 1,496,671 votes emerged fourth.

What lies ahead
The recently conducted presidential election in Nigeria raises a number of issues that have both domestic and international implications. For Nigeria, a key issue lies with electoral transparency. While the voting took place against a technologically improved background, various issues outlined above shows that clearly there is room to make it more in par with international standards.  The results of presidential election also show a worrisome decline in voter turnout. Nigeria as the largest democratic country in Africa now bears the responsibility to tackle the issue in order to politically set the path on for others to follow. Moreover, operational and logistical failures, violence, and other issues observed by international observers, including the Gender and Election Watch (GEW), the African Union observation mission, ECOWAS observation mission, Chatham House, European Union, and others, are difficult to ignore and so while the AU, ECOWAS, GEW, etc, have described the election as “peaceful”, and as an indication of Nigeria’s political maturity, the lessons that can be learnt from these assessments will surely have a positive impact toward the stability of the continent at large, in offering way forward to counter the prevailing military coups and stem unconstitutional transfer of power.

And finally, fake news distributed via online social media and local and foreign media outlets are an important but worrisome addition to the issues that plague electoral processes, and Nigeria is not immune to these. There were sponsored and used before, during and after election, taking the form of false opinion polls and fake elections results in order to delegitimize the outcome of the elections and smear the reputation of Nigeria in the eyes of international community. This is more the important considering the fact that this was the first time Nigeria’s voters were divided along regional and ethno-religious identities, blocks and lines. In the same vein; the presidential elections also saw the people’s choice of candidate being influenced by insecurity, fuel scarcity, economic hardship, among other challenges. While the conduct of recent presidential election in Nigeria, is a lucid pointer that, democracy has come to stay in the country, the country has a long way to go in order to achieve consolidated democracy. As such, the declared winner Alhaji Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (President elect) now has herculean task of bringing back the country on track.