With only a few days to the 2023 Nigeria general elections, the atmosphere is vividly expectant. The Voters\u2019 Register swelled by more than 9 million registrants, bringing the number of registered voters to 93 million from the 2019 number of 84 million. Citizens appear anxious to troop out in their numbers to cast their votes ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly polls on Saturday, February 25. Even the biting pains of current conditions do not appear to have dampened the determination to turn out to vote. Citizens are stranded or squabbling and fighting for cash from the banks and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), which are barely dispensing cash. Fuel queues continue to extend despite government promises of fuel supply. Incredible insecurity ravages the country. And it would appear that Nigerians have never had it this bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s non-renewable second\nterm coming to an end on May 29, a new President is set to emerge from the\nFebruary 25 elections. Out of 18 Presidential candidates, it is interesting\nthat the major contenders for the election are from across Nigeria\u2019s major\nethnic groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This will be the first general elections to be\nconducted in Nigeria with the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the\nnew Electoral Act 2022. The Electoral Act introduced new reforms, including the\nuse of technology to reduce the human element in the conduct of elections. On\nseveral occasions, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has\nassured election stakeholders and the generality of Nigerians that it is\nprepared to conduct the elections and put to rest concerns over postponement of\nelections and potential adverse effects it could have on the already heated\npolitical and economic environment in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Th naira re-design policy which inflicted so much\nhardship on Nigerians has been in focus in recent weeks, with the initial\nJanuary 31 and the subsequent February 10 deadlines for the use of old N1,000,\nN500 and N200 notes coming into effect. The scarcity of new naira notes and\ndowntime of online banking platforms have made it difficult for people to make\ntransactions to meet their daily needs. The ensuing frustration has welled up to protests and unrest in different parts of the country,\nwith bank staff attacked and properties belonging to banks vandalised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Political party activities ahead of the elections have\nnot been devoid of violence. Since parties commenced campaigns in the latter\npart of 2022, some rallies organised by the various political parties have been\ncharacterised by violence and there have also been threats of voter suppression\nby certain groups and party supporters in some parts of the country. Also, some\ncandidates and their spokespersons have made inciteful statements, which have spurred\ntheir supporters to attack supporters of other political parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the current situation in the country and\nNigerians expectant about the elections, it is important for the polls to be peaceful. Security\nagencies, including the Police and paramilitary agencies such as the Nigeria\nImmigration Service and Federal Road Safety Corps deploying personnel for the\nelections, are expected to carry out their election duties in line with INEC\u2019s\ndirectives, and respect the rights of citizens who come out to perform their\ncivic duty. Nigerians expect that security agencies, who are involved in\nproviding security in the elections will do their duties professionally. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With only a few days to the 2023 Nigeria general elections, the atmosphere is vividly expectant. The Voters\u2019 Register swelled by more than 9 million registrants, bringing the number of registered voters to 93 million from the 2019 number of 84 million. Citizens appear anxious to troop out in their numbers to cast their votes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3113,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions\/3113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}