President Joe Biden, in his March 5 visit to Selma, Alabama, reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to supporting democracy and protecting voting rights. This commitment echoed loudly in Africa’s largest democracy, which experienced a contentious presidential election on Feb. 25. In response to an avalanche of criticism, the government postponed for one week the voting for state governors and assemblies.
Despite its imperfections, Nigeria’s electoral democracy has lasted longer than its predecessors. Almost 90 million Nigerians collected voting cards for the contests. Fewer than a third, however, showed up at the polls. A highly touted system of electronic transmission of votes failed, leading to the manual collation of ballots. Accusations swirled that the failure was contrived so the results could be manipulated.
Disregarding the protests, on Feb. 28, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former governor of the most populous state, Lagos, to be the elected president. Just a day later, the U.S. State Department congratulated Tinubu and the Nigerian people. Its statement seemed to downplay the protests, referring to them as “frustrations over the shortcomings of technical elements” in the electoral process.
Quickly adjusting America’s stance, U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Mary Beth Leonard called on INEC to address the challenges before the next electoral round.
INEC responded to the multiplying protests by postponing the election of governors and state assemblies to March 18 from March 11. Much is at stake in how this combustible situation in Africa’s largest democracy is handled.
Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military head of state and elected president, had urged INEC to delay announcing election results. He described election officials as “compromised” and the process as “corrupted.” Obasanjo’s statement coincided with the declaration of leading opposition parties that the elections were “irretrievably compromised” and called for their cancellation.
What are the prospects for political stability in a federal system modeled on that of the United States? INEC has the daunting task of fixing the electoral system in a country of nearly 220 million people wracked by conflicts. Peter Obi, a former governor from the southeast, galvanized a large following, particularly among youths, and was officially credited with 25% of the presidential vote. His ethnic group, the Igbos, feel excluded from Nigeria’s highest offices, and a fair share of power, since the Biafran war of 1967-70. Obi’s “third force” poses a major challenge to the two-party dominant system.
In the 2015 elections, Nigeria’s current president, Muhammadu Buhari, struck a historic deal with Tinubu, political chieftain of the Yoruba southwest. It enabled him to wrest the presidency after several tries. (Buhari first did so as a military officer in December 1983.)
This favor was returned as Tinubu’s 2023 victory was made possible by a strong showing in several northern states. Were there machinations to secure his commanding 37% of the popular vote? Perhaps, but that is not a novelty in Nigerian elections. However, the bar is set higher because of the work of many civil society groups, a new Electoral Act, huge government sums spent on improving INEC’s capacity and extensive social media.
Going further than Obasanjo in her criticism of the presidential elections is Nigeria’s celebrated novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In a Feb. 28 op-ed for The New York Times, she contended that “many voters have assumed purposeful intent, that election workers were instructed not to upload results so that they could later be secretly manipulated.” She referred to Nigeria as the “tottering giant” of Africa. A British newspaper similarly described Nigeria as “deeply damaged” by the electoral disarray.
Discontent and damage are real, but they are attributes of a country with malfunctioning institutions, extreme poverty, violent Islamist insurgencies and widespread insecurity. The vise was further tightened on Nigerians, including electoral workers, when the currency was changed ahead of the elections, and cash became scarce.
The government has since reversed itself and allowed the old notes to be valid. To combat electoral misconduct, the Electoral Commission has adopted new technologies: biometric registration of voters and electronic transmission of voting results. However, its best laid plans are upended by thuggery at polling stations and malfeasance by election officials.
Nigeria’s first two republics fell after contentious elections, in 1965 and 1983, respectively. The third expired after the winner of the 1993 presidential vote, Moshood Abiola, was denied his mandate. Several years of military dictatorship followed. The fourth republic, since 1998, has periodically gone to the brink over disputed elections. Much is therefore riding on the March 18 vote for 28 of 36 governorships.
It is a vital opportunity to rebuild confidence in a bruised electoral system and bolster the cause of democracy and voting rights in Africa.
