It's a flawed election - International media passes damning verdict on Nigerian elections

An international media as described Nigeria's election as flawed in a published article after the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.

Recall that on Wednesday, March 1, the Independent National Electoral Commission chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu declared Bola Tinubu, the winner and president-elect after polling 37% of the vote, while his contenders Atiku Abubakar polled 29%, and Labour Party's Peter Obi 25%.

This result has been rejected by the opposition parties who cited violence, chaos, malpractices on the side of INEC, failure of the commission to fulfil its promise to upload all results in real time at polling units, among many others as reasons to annul the election results.

The international observers at the Nigeria election also said in their preliminary findings that the election lacked transparency.

Despite the call for the election to be cancelled, INEC announced Bola Tinubu as the winner of the Saturday, February 25 poll, garnering 8,794,726 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, who scored 6,984,520 and Peter Obi who scored 6,101,533.

An international media seem to agree with the opposition parties and the observers mission as they give a damning verdict on the Nigeria election.

Read below an article written by The Economist with the title; "Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s political kingmaker, wins a flawed election"

"After a chaotically organised vote and messy count, Bola Tinubu, the candidate of Nigeria’s incumbent ruling party, has been declared the winner of the closest presidential election in decades.

Mr Tinubu, a 70-year-old former governor of Lagos and longtime kingmaker in Nigerian politics, took 37% of the vote, the electoral commission said on March 1st.

This placed him ahead of Atiku Abubakar (29%), a tycoon standing for the People’s Democratic Party (pdp), the main opposition, and Peter Obi (25%), a wildcard third-party candidate representing the Labour Party.

Mr Tinubu’s victory confounded most pollsters who had put Mr Obi well ahead in the race to lead Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country (though some pundits questioned the predictive power of several polls because large numbers of respondents had declined to say whom they would vote for).

It also extends the rule of the All Progressive Congress (apc) party, which has been in power since 2015.

During this time Nigerians on average have grown poorer, while violence, separatism and insecurity have risen.

The election result rattled financial markets—Nigeria’s international bonds fell—over concerns that the opposition parties’ claims of vote-rigging could cause instability."

BS