By Adekunle Animashaun
The much-awaited Nigeria 2023 presidential election was held on February 25, 2023. Nigerians have been treated to varying accounts of the election by analysts, media, both local and international, observer groups and think tanks including the prestigious London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. Commentaries and opinions on the election have been both contentious and divided and losers in the election have opted for legal challenge of the declared outcome of the election by Nigeria’s election oversight body, the Independent National Electoral Commission. Ultimately, the election has been won and lost and it is gratifying that the parties that feel aggrieved about the outcome of the election have resorted to election petition to seek redress as provided in Section 130 of the 2022 Electoral Act.
The 2023 presidential vote is significant in many respects. For the first time since civil politics was restored in 1999, the incumbent party flew a same-faith presidential ticket, an action that was widely acknowledged as a risky electoral venture in the multi-cultural Nigerian context. The election also recorded substantial reduction in the potency of political incumbency as an instrument of electoral prospects. Not only did some state governors lose their states to opposition parties in the presidential contest, but some governors who contested parliamentary elections also lost their bids to opposition parties. Furthermore, the election posted the least national voter turnout in the post-transition period. According to INEC, only 24.97 million voters cast the ballot out of the total 93, 469, 008 million registered voters representing approximately 29 percent of the national voter population. The country recorded a 35 per cent voter turn-out in the 2019 election that renewed the mandate of the outgoing Buhari administration.
One issue that has prominently featured in most analyses of the upshot of the 2023 presidential vote is the negative amplification of our fault lines as a pluralist formation. The election witnessed an egregious resurgence of the salience of ethnicity and religion in voting behaviour. In comparative terms, among the three top contenders in the election, Labour Party’s Peter Obi turned out to be the prime beneficiary of identity-based voting.
This ethno-sectarian pattern of voting during the election; and the inherent damage this does to the national society, must challenge the president-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, to embark on serious and intentional efforts at rebuilding the nation including forming an inclusive government in the immediate post-inauguration period.
This is very important given the emerging hostile inter-ethnic relations between the Igbos and Yoruba, particularly in the southwest region of the Nigerian federation.
The outcome of the 2023 presidential election also leaves some implications for the polity. Firstly, as stated above, the ethnoreligious pattern of voting as well as the final results of the election have deepened ethnic mistrust within the Nigerian federalist framework. Secondly, Nigeria’s largest opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) may suffer an irreversible decline, if not atrophy, in the electoral market. By the results of the presidential election, the party lost to the Labour Party in many of its traditional strongholds, particularly in the southeast and the south south regions. On the contrary, the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) will be in a good stead to rebuild the party and consolidate power, especially federal. The outcome of the election may also have rested finally the political/electoral ambition of the presidential standard bearer of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. There were strong indications before the election that the three-time presidential contender was taking his last shot at the presidency with the 2023 election.
The 2023 presidential election has thrown up both heroes and villains. By my reckoning, President Muhammadu Buhari is the first hero of the election. That his administration superintended the election in spite of various conspiracy theories being bandied around including the rumoured interim government agenda; and in spite of the poor state of security across the country, the president and his government deserve some commendation.
Nigerian people who defied all odds, particularly the twin scarcities of cash and fuel, to exercise their civic duty also deserve praise. The G5 governors, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) as well as Peter Obi (even if his heroism is fouled by ethnic and sectarian odour) are also heroes whose roles and performances strongly shaped the outcome of the 2023 presidential poll. My good friend and regular columnist with the Punch newspaper, Jide Ojo, in his March 1, 2023 column, aptly dubbed this category of heroes “Tinubu’s destiny helpers” who unwittingly aided Tinubu’s triumph
The election under review has equally produced villains. There are quite a number of them, Former President Olusegun Obasanjo leads the pack. General Obasanjo did not only condemn the election and its outcome, but he also called for the cancellation of the election.
The relevance and national respectability of Chief Obasanjo, who holds the record of supervising the worst election in the history of post-colonial Nigeria, may have suffered huge damage from this unstatesmanlike conduct. Religious clerics who either swore that the 2023 elections would not hold or make predictions about the outcome of the election that did not come to pass constitute another category of villains. Senator Dino Melaye who reproduced the 2015 Orubebe style at the national collation centre, purveyors of fake news and hate speech on social media, Simon Ekpa and his IPOB co-travellers as well as Babachir David Lawal and his fellow ‘light seers’ complete the villain community.
What is Tinubu bringing to the table? Few people will deny the fact that the president-elect possesses personal qualities, attributes and endowments that constitute a strong political capital. He is large-hearted, nationalistic, de-tribalized, possesses awesome bridge-building strategies and is intellectually driven. In spite of their well-advertised limitations, the progressive politicians give some measure of premium to intellectualism in such areas as research and strategy in party operations, composition of the post-election government and policy development. It is hoped that Senator Tinubu will leverage this political capital as well as his wide local and international networks to drive his ‘renewed hope’ project. While the candidates that lost in the election have democratic rights to seek legal challenge, we urge them not to allow their personal ambition to override the national interest. They should be ready to support the new helmsman of the federal republic in the arduous task of rebuilding and reforming the nation.
Adekunle Animashaun, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Fountain University, Osogbo, Nigeria.
