Nigerians went to the polls on Friday to choose the next president, marking the end of the draining electoral campaign noted for the emergence of a credible alternative to the two dominant political parties in the country.
The main candidates have spent five months criss-crossing Africa’s largest democracy as voters prepare to elect a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, who stepped down after eight years in power.
On Saturday, the voting process was marred by delays and violence in parts of the country.
Voting was due to start at 8.30am but Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials did not arrive in many areas until several hours later.
In parts of southeastern Imo state, election officials had not arrived by 3:30pm – an hour after polls were scheduled to close.
At one of the polling units in Surulere district of Lagos, people waiting to cast their votes were sent running after gunmen fired several shots into the air. Many waited for hours to vote.
In parts of Lekki district, youths wielding machetes disrupted the proceedings.
Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of INEC, said at a press briefing in the capital Abuja that gunmen had attacked a polling unit in southern Delta state, carting away at least two biometric voting machines.
Yakubu said violence was also recorded in the northern states of Borno and Katsina. Yakubu apologized for being late.
A total of 18 candidates are officially running, although only three have a realistic chance of winning what is expected to be the closest presidential election in Nigeria’s democratic era.
Bola Tinubu, governor of Lagos for eight years until 2007, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president who is serving a sixth term, of the Peoples Democratic Party, are hopeful of victory.
So is Peter Obi, a businessman and former state governor whose underdog campaign in the upstart Labor party has galvanized voters disillusioned by Nigeria’s two main parties.
Rarely since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 has there been no incumbent or former military ruler on the presidential ballot, which analysts say gives the opportunity this time to choose a different type of leader. Buhari, the military head of state for a period in the 1980s, has stood in all but one of the six elections so far, casting a shadow over Nigeria’s democracy.
Voters will also choose 109 senators and 360 members for the lower house.
Nigerian presidential election
Read a collection of important stories about Nigeria’s elections this Saturday
The launch of newly redesigned currency notes and a crippling fuel shortage have dominated headlines in the weeks leading up to the election.
Repeated questions about the age of the two main party candidates – Tinubu is 70 and Abubakar 76 – have also been aired on the campaign trail across the country where the average age is 18. Both men have been dogged by allegations of the same history of corruption. argue.
Pre-election polls predicted a win for Obi with a high voter turnout, but the large number of people who prefer not to share their voting intentions with pollsters has made analysts wary of reading many surveys.
Previous Nigerian elections have been marred by low turnout; more than a third of eligible voters will vote in 2019. More than 93 million Nigerians have registered to vote this time.
A victory for Obi, 61, whose campaign focused on frugality and accountability has attracted disaffected urban youth in the country’s south, would be a major political shock in a country that has only elected presidents from two major parties since 1999.
To win the presidency, a candidate must secure the most votes and pass the constitutional threshold of obtaining at least 25 percent of the ballots in at least two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital Abuja. If no candidate clears the bar, there will be a run-off vote for the first time in state history.
The winner will be announced by the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria’s electoral agency, at a ceremony in Abuja. Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, an analyst at the Center for Democracy and Development think-tank, said that although the results will start on Sunday, the declaration may not come until Wednesday.
Rampant insecurity, public sector corruption and the parlous state of the economy paralyzed by rising prices and high unemployment are among the biggest concerns for voters. The proposal to scrap petrol subsidies that cost the country more than $10bn last year is another big issue.