The day is finally here and Nigerians would be filing out beginning from 8.30am to elect a new president that will lead Africa’s most populous Nation on earth for the next four years.
It is an election in which global leaders among them, the President of United States, Joe Biden, has urged Nigerians to come out in their number and vote. They also urged the people to make the process violence free, even as they have called on all candidates to accept the verdict if the people or pursue their grievances against it legally.
Though eighteen candidates had filed intent for the position of the Nigeria’s Number One civil servant, the race leading to today has shown that it is clearly a four horse race.
Prominent in the race into the election are the candidates of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, PDp, Atiku Abubakar, Labour Party, Peter Gregory Obi and New Nigeria People’s Party Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.
None is a stranger to the nation’s political circus. The only difference is that this is the first time they are all meeting on the ballot for the same office.
The APC candidate since his last electoral assignment as the Lagos State Governor has been at the background, pushing his proteges for public office. Most of the he time, with success.
The PDP is the only one with the pedigree of a war horse. He has the history of the longest contestant for the office among the lot. He first make a bid for the nation’s president in 1993. Despite the very strong backing of the milito-political strategist of the period Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, he lost to Yoruba billionaire Bashorun MKO Abiola. Both belonged the Social. Democratic Party at the time. Attempts to ensure he was picked as the party’s vice president equally flopped. In 1999, he was coasting to victory as the Governor of Adamawa State when he was called to be the Vice Presidential candidate of the PDP. He has bid for the office since the 2007, he failed, in 2011, 2015, and it was widely believed to have been robbed of victory by the APC in 2019. He is squaring up against one of his political proteges who has become a major regional force, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Obi, was until this election a dark horse. His closest tip was as the vice presidential candidate of the PDP in 2019. He had left the party early when it was clear the permutation will not favour his emergence as the VP this time. Lucky, he secured the slot on Labour Party ticket. He has been the greatest threat that has emerged in this new cycle of election as he has a massive following of the youths who are bent on changing the narrative of power.
However, Obi suffers greatly because his party could not muster the requisite structure fitting for anyone who desires to lead Africas most complex democracy.
Kwanwaso has always been lugging at the background. Always been a tag along for Atiku Abubakar until this election, the reason many still believed when the push comes to shove, he may seek to partner with Atiku, a fact that he and his handlers have continued to debunk. Kwankwaso has built a massive structure over the years such that the NNPP which was established a little over a year ago had pushed to be reckoned with and is categorised as an A option in a league of 18 parties.
All the 18 parties, and especially the big four have had their day on the campaign circuit. While APC rounded off its campaign on Tuesday in Lagos, PDP did in Adamawa, and NNPP did in Kano on Thursday. They all sold the beauty of their ideas as they reach for the minds and hearts of Nigeria in the contest for the votes.
Political pundits are however of the opinion that the contest really is a two horse race between the APC and the PDP. For them, everything including the list of party agents registered by the parties to help them monitor the election showed that of the 18, only the two fielded agents in all the 176,786 wards in the country, while the LP and the NNPP, had a little over 40,000 and 34,000 respectively.
As thr hour draws near, INEC has published that of the 97 million Nigerians who are issued the PVC, only a little over 87 million actually collected their PVCs. What that means in effect is that all the 18 contestants are battling for this 87.2 million voters as they go into the voter’s market this morning.
Of the lot, the APC candidate who comes from Lagos appears most favoured. Lagos hold the ace in PVC collection. But it has the history of the most dreaded in terms of voter turnouts if past elections are to go by. Will it change this time?
Of the six Geo-Political Zones, the Northwest may be the decider of today’s election. Regarded as the Vote basket of the nation, the NW has always been the decider in all the previous elections. Over 18 million votes is locked in all the seven states of the NW. Of the lot, Kano, Kaduna and Katsina, have the biggest share.
In effect any of he politician who wish to win today must have a good showing in the Northwest.
APC believed if you the president wills he may have it tweeked for the party. He still have 15 million votes which he can drop in the basket for the he party. But will he?
Conspiracy theorists have gone to town that Atiku Abubakar who has run the most statesmanly campaign all through may be the northerners favourites. Many are miffed how the APC candidates and officials of the party had been fighting and denigrating the status and office of the President. They argued that the president may fight back, knowing he had nothing to lose as they party has turned it’s back against him and his policies, especially the Naira swap policy. Many believed the naira change was an arrow that hit straight at the last of the strategies of the party to compromise the polls. They alleged that vote buying would have been ride if the President was not courageous to stand his feet and do the needful even at great cost to peace.
Pundits believed the APC despite having a very good candidate whose track record in Lagos remains sterling, and his deputy whose records in Borno has been unassailable wi be going into this election with a huge deficit if goodwill.
Sunrise reports that pundits argued that the party has consistently been losing his goodwill since it was thrown up in 2015. But this year, the issues are further muddled up by developments such as the EndSARS controversial murders, the handling of COVID-19 palliatives which ended up in private warehouses, the downward swing of the Naira, now pegged at N750, the upswing in fuel prices despite the promises to reactivate refineries, and end the subsidy regimes, and above all, the pain and death occasioned by this naira swap.
All in all Nigeria is standing on the cusp of history. As they go into today’s poll,.a whole lot must define their decision. As they contend with the fact that their decisions would.help.define the journey of the next four years, so also will they contend with the fact that the whole world is watching them make a choice of how they want to define Africa and Nigeria’s engagement in global affairs.
What they do today is weighty, but there is abundant of assurances by the electoral umpire, INEC that everything is in place to make this the best, freest, fairest, most transparent and credible election in Africa’s most populous democracy, which would today parade over 87 million voters across 36 states and Abuja, 776 local governments, 8,809 registration areas, 176,606 polling wards and 1491 electoral constituencies in the country.
Evetything seems set and in about an hour and half, Nigerians will be on parade for the next set of leaders at the top echelon of the executive and the legislature, which is the National Assembly.
Sunrise News join the rest of the world to say may the best candidate win.