2/26/23

By Aditi Jha

Yesterday over 93 million Nigerians voted in the polls for lawmakers and the president of Nigeria. The election is expected to be one of the closest ever in the country. Nigeria is currently struggling with corruption, crime, and economic issues such as debt and poverty, making the results of the election even more significant for the country.  A younger candidate from the largely unknown Labor Party, Peter Obi, has challenged two candidates running from the two major political parties in Nigeria, and so far it's unclear who will succeed the previous president, Muhammadu Buhari.  The two older candidates are Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, who belong to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and People's Democratic Party (PDP) political parties, respectively. Obi aims to fix the ethnic divides in Africa's most populous country with efficient and responsible governance. He has a reputation for being frugal; the 61-year-old businessman says that he only has two pairs of shoes, carries his own luggage instead of paying somebody else to do it, and wears cheaper suits. Obi promises to cut down on wasteful expenditures in governance, another thing that made him popular across Nigeria with his followers, who call themselves the OBIdients. He's mostly supported by Nigerian youth and served as the governor of south-eastern Anambra State from 2006 to 2014. The supporters of the other candidates say that there's no way that he will win and so it's better to just vote for one of the traditional parties instead, while OBIdients point out the claims of corruption and poor health that follow the PDP's Mr. Abubakar and the APC's Mr. Tinubu. There were many issues with the election yesterday because of the alarming number of voters. Many people couldn't vote and were trying to cast their ballot today as well. In parts of Nigeria, people voted all the way through the night. First-time voter Susan Ekpoh told BBC that she spent 13 hours at her polling station in Abuja. Additionally, several people were attacked at a polling place in Lekki. People at the scene told CNN that "thugs arrived and started hitting people with chairs ... a lot of women were attacked, including a pregnant woman ... they smashed her phone ... if you had a phone that was a crime. People were beaten and had their phones smashed. It was very scary." Dr. Nkem Okoli was going to vote when masked men attacked the station, and she told BBC that "There was pandemonium. There were bottles flying everywhere. They broke [the ballot box]. They stole the phones of the officials. Now we can't vote." Early results have started to arrive. In the south-western Ekiti state of Nigeria, there is a clear victory for Bola Tinubu. More results won't be declared until Monday, when an official from the electoral body in each of the 36 states will go to Abuja and the results will be announced state-by-state. 

That's the news for today! Stay safe!