The view from the ground: Nigerian elections
At end of last month Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of Nigeria’s highly-disputed Presidential elections. Ahead of the state elections tomorrow, we spoke to election observer Ambassador Mark Green about why this election failed to meet expectations.
Ambassador Mark Green speaks here in a personal capacity - his views do not reflect that of the IRI and NDI observation mission, or its members.
With 93m people registered to vote, the emergence of political outsider Peter Obi, and a young voter base hungry for change, the Nigerian Presidential election last month was set to be a historic moment for Africa’s largest democracy. However, despite 87m people collecting their voting cards, only 24m people cast their vote - the lowest turnout since Nigeria became a democracy in 1999.
With interest in this election at an all-time high, nobody foresaw this abysmal turnout. As Bola Tinubu, a long-time political player from the All-Progressives Congress party was declared the winner, allegations that the vote had been manipulated surfaced. Second-placed candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and Peter Obi, who placed third, are now contesting the results in court, and Saturday’s crucial state elections which will appoint governors of 28 states, have now been postponed to tomorrow.
So, why did so many people not cast their vote on February 25th? Was this a result of growing political disenchantment, or something more nefarious? We spoke to Ambassador Mark A. Green, who is the President and CEO of the Wilson Centre, and monitored the election as a part of a joint election observation mission conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI). Working with a team of 40 delegates who covered 10-12 polling units each, their task as election observers was to look for indications of buying, fraud, insecurity, and misappropriation of voting materials.
Ambassador Green expressed a sentiment shared by many election observers, that the numbers in the Nigerian election didn’t add up. “The commission declared the results with 1/3 of polling units not counted, and I said to delegates at the time that something didn’t feel right. The turnout was 27% for an election where interest was at an all-time high. Either somehow in the days between the collection of voting cards and actual voting, there was a mass change of mind, or something happened”.
Ambassador Green stopped short of indicating that anything deliberate had happened to manipulate voting but rather pointed to incompetence and inadequate planning on the part of the National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“The National Election Commission never did a stress test or a dry run, and just about every polling place opened late - many hours late. There was significant confusion at the polling units about finding registration names and simple and avoidable mistakes were made such as mounting lists on the wall which were double-sided. The technology that was supposed to upload results from polling units also failed.”
“While there was violence at polling stations, it was hard for me to believe this chased away the two-thirds of people who had got their voting cards. We generally saw patient voters who stood in line for hours in the heat, and at one point a rainstorm, with little complaints.”
Having spoken to many educated Nigerians at the polls, Ambassador Green described the range of disappointment and disgust – even from those happy with the result. “Surely we can do better than this, is what we heard over and over.” INEC’s failures were emphasised in a strong statement from Mary Beth Leonard, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, who called the body to “promptly address the challenges” ahead of the state governors’ elections this weekend.
At Audley, we have seen how important it is for our clients to proactively communicate amid a crisis in the right tone and frequency, or risk further escalation. In the absence of clear communication and a press conference from the electoral commission regarding the problems at polling stations, Ambassador Green said there was a vacuum that was filled with suspicion and allegations of rigging.
The road ahead is uncertain for Nigeria as it seeks to reaffirm and consolidate an image of democracy in a way that encourages people, particularly the young (the median voting age in Nigeria is 18), to invest and engage in the process. In the next few weeks, this is made more difficult by the ongoing legal challenge and the fact that the three main candidates won the same number of states and the now-President only received 37% of the voters.
“There’s a good chance that the winner would have won anyway, but tremendous damage has been done to the credibility of the elections and administration of elections. The new government will have a short window to pull together a sense of national identity and purpose.”
Last week there was some hope for tomorrow’s state elections, with the two runners-up securing Court of Appeal orders granting them access to tablets used at polling stations to accredit voters and transmit results. INEC will also configure devices, despite some concerns from the opposition that data could be lost. However, this has done little to allay worries that the governor’s elections could be compromised with coordinated violence at polling stations.
Amid the economic challenges facing Nigeria and young people leaving the country in their droves to search for a better life, President Tinubu has much to prove. With confidence in the electoral system at an all-time low, INEC also has to step up to combat further disillusionment and damage. As Ambassador Green summarised, “we thought this election would set the tone for a number of elections, but now we hope it won’t”.
By Lucy Thompson, Senior Associate at Audley