Africa-Press – Nigeria. The 2023 Nigerian presidential election will be held on 25 February 2023 to elect the president and vice president of Nigeria.Incumbent APC President Muhammadu Buhari is term-limited and cannot seek re-election for a third term.
Other federal elections, including elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate, will also be held on the same date while state elections will be held two weeks afterward on 11 March. The winners of the election will be inaugurated on 29 May 2023, the former date of Democracy Day.
Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the Peoples Democratic Party nominating former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on 28 May while the All Progressives Congress nominated former Governor of Lagos State Bola Tinubu on 8 June. For the less politically represented Labour Party and New Nigeria Peoples Party, former Governor of Anambra State Peter Obi was nominated on 30 May and former Governor of Kano State Rabiu Kwankwaso was nominated on 8 June, respectively. In the weeks after the primaries, vice presidential running mates were announced with Abubakar choosing Governor Ifeanyi Okowa on 16 June while his main opponents initially picked placeholder running mates before later substituting in substantive nominees.Obi selected former Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed on 8 July, Tinubu picked Senator Kashim Shettima on 10 July and Kwankwaso chose pastor Isaac Idahosa on 14 July.
Background
After the first term of Muhammadu Buhari as President, he won re-election to the office as the nominee of the All Progressives Congress by defeating Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party with a margin of 14 percentage points—nearly 4 million votes. For the legislative elections, the APC solidified its majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate after nearly losing the majorities due to defections in 2018. On the state level, the PDP gained two in total as the party gained four governorships from the APC while the APC gained two governorships from the PDP. During the first two years of the 2019–2023 term, the APC expanded slightly through the defections of dozens of state and federal legislators and three governors—Ebonyi State’s Dave Umahi, Cross River State’s Benedict Ayade, and Zamfara State’s Bello Muhammad Matawalle—but went through a prolonged leadership crisis;for the PDP, the losses through defection took a toll but the party resolved its leadership crisis and held a peaceful convention. During the second half of the term, both parties were hit by defections but the APC held its long-postponed convention and the PDP underwent public disputes over not zoning its presidential nomination.
Ahead of Buhari’s second term, his promises included the completion of in-process rail lines and other infrastructure projects, the further inclusion of women in government, educational reform, and increasing anti-corruption initiatives.In terms of his performance, the administration was commended for improving the agriculture sector, finishing infrastructure projects, successful advances in the fight against terrorists in the northeast, securing the return of previously looted public funds from abroad, and increasing the minimum wage. However, he faced criticism for abandoning anti-corruption initiatives, poor quality of life, an increasingly dire security situation outside of the northeast (bandits and some terrorist expansion in the North West, herder-farmer and interethnic conflicts in the North Central, pirates and illegal oil bunkering gangs in the Niger Delta, and a violent separatist movement in the South East along with nationwide kidnapping and security force brutality epidemics), and increasing national debt. Buhari also came under fire for instituting a seven-month long national ban on Twitter after the site removed an abusive tweet he posted in reference to the Civil War; the ban was decried as a failed attempt at censorship. Another key source of controversy was the administration’s handling of the October 2020 protest wave of the End SARS movement with the most fervent criticism emerging over the Lekki massacre when soldiers in Lagos killed multiple peaceful protesters before the Army and administration attempted to deny the shooting ever took place.
Buhari also had to contend with a fluctuating, but consistently low, approval rating.
Electoral system
The President of Nigeria is elected using a modified two-round system. To be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive a majority of the valid votes and over 25% of the valid votes in at least 24 of the 36 states. If no candidate passes this threshold, a second round will be held between the top candidate and the next candidate to have received a majority of votes in the highest number of states. The candidate with the most votes then win.
Primary elections
The primaries, along with any potential challenges to primary results, were to take place between 4 April and 3 June 2022 but the deadline was extended to 9 June. An informal zoning gentlemen’s agreement sets the South (the South East, South South, and South West geopolitical zones) to have the next President as Buhari, a Northerner, was elected twice. Another informal convention calls for nominees to have vice presidential running mates from a different region and religion as themselves. Despite the arrangement, most parties did not formally close their primaries to non-Southern candidates or officially designate that their tickets cannot have running mates of the same religion.
Both the APC and PDP had heated internal debates over zoning and same religion tickets in the year ahead of the primary. Despite the informal convention, the People’s Democratic Party declined to formally zone its nomination in early May 2022 before going against the convention to nominate northerner Atiku Abubakar; the All Progressives Congress also declined to formally zone its nomination but later nominated a southerner, Bola Tinubu, as its flagbearer.The APC, however, did break the other major convention by picking a same religion ticket; the PDP did not.
All Progressives Congress
With Muhammadu Buhari having been elected to the presidency twice, he was ineligible for renomination. In July 2021, then-national APC Caretaker Chairman and Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni backed the consensus method of nominating a presidential candidate instead of the more common direct or indirect primary methods but the party did not come to a decision on primary method at the time. During Buni’s term as Caretaker Chairman from 2020 to 2022, he campaigned heavily for prominent PDP members to defect to the APC, weakening the opposition’s caucus in the National Assembly and gaining three governors—Ebonyi State’s Dave Umahi, Cross River State’s Benedict Ayade, and Zamfara State’s Bello Muhammad Matawalle—in 2020 and 2021. However, the APC’s electoral performance and party unity were more mixed as it came a distant third in the 2021 Anambra State gubernatorial election and was still beset by infighting.The APC primary was framed in the wider context of internal party feuds stemming from the APC’s formation in 2013 and pre-2019 election party crises to the 2020 removal of party leadership and contentious 2021 state party congresses. The ability of the APC national caretaker committee to resolve state party factionizations and properly organize the 2022 national party convention was seen as vital for both the APC’s presidential chances and its future as a party.After several postponements, the convention was successfully held on 26 March 2022 despite some controversy over the consensus method used for most party offices.
In terms of zoning, there was no announced formal zoning agreement for the APC nomination despite calls from certain politicians and interest groups such as the Southern Governors’ Forum to zone the nomination to the South as Buhari, a Northerner, was elected twice. Countering its proponents were prospective candidates from the North and the Northern Governors’ Forum, which did not oppose a southern presidency but initially disagreed with formal zoning. On the other hand, there were few proponents of a same religion ticket, mainly supporters and allies of eventual nominee Bola Tinubu who argued that there were few powerful Northern Christian APC politicians who could be his running mate.Allies of other potential candidates and groups like the Christian Association of Nigeria came out strongly against the idea of a same religion ticket on grounds of national unity and religious harmony.
On 20 April 2022, the APC National Executive Committee announced the party timetable for the presidential primary and that the primary would use the indirect primary method. The announcement set the party’s expression of interest form price at ₦30 million and the nomination form price at ₦70 million with a 50% nomination form discount for candidates younger than 40 while women and candidates with disabilities get free nomination forms. Forms were to be sold from 26 April to 6 May until the deadline was later extended to 10 May then 12 May.After the submission of nomination forms by 13 May, candidates were to be screened by a party committee on 24 and 25 May but it was delayed several times to while the screening appeal process will take place afterwards Ward congresses and LGA congresses were rescheduled for between 12 and 14 May to elect “ad hoc delegates” for the primary. Candidates approved by the screening process were to advance to a primary set for 30 May and 1 June but the party delayed the primary to 6–8 June.
Before the primary, controversy over the prospective electors emerged due to the legal ramifications of the amended Electoral Act. After years of debate and public pressure, Buhari signed a new Electoral Act in January 2022 that drastically reformed election and electoral systems for both primary and general elections. One of the reforms was the exclusion of ex officio “statutory delegates”—thousands of current and former officeholders—from voting in party primaries; National Assembly leadership said the exclusion was inadvertent and in May, NASS passed an amendment to the act to allow statutory delegates to vote in primaries.However, Buhari refused to sign the amendment into law, forcing the APC to suddenly prohibit statutory delegates from voting. Not only did the action prevent Buhari and other high-ranking officeholders from voting, it drastically reduced the number of delegates from over 7,800 to just the 2,322 elected “ad hoc delegates.”
The pre-primary period was dominated by questions around major candidates and Buhari’s endorsement. Of the formally announced candidates, analysts viewed five as the major contenders: Rotimi Amaechi—former Minister of Transportation and former Governor of Rivers State, Kayode Fayemi—Governor of Ekiti State, Ahmad Lawan—Senate President, Yemi Osinbajo—Vice President, and Bola Tinubu—former Governor of Lagos State; however, two potential surprises emerged: former President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor of the Central Bank Godwin Emefiele. Groups purchasing forms on behalf of Emefiele and Jonathan coupled with months of speculation about their candidacies led to rumours of a plot to impose one of the two as nominee despite the legally-mandated nonpartisanship of Emefiele’s office and Jonathan’s membership in the PDP; neither candidacy came to fruition as Jonathan refused the forms while Emefiele was forced to withdraw due to public pressure.The other main question was Buhari’s endorsement; despite months of contending that he would not weigh in on the primary, about a week before the primary, Buhari held a meeting with APC governors where he asked them to support his preferred candidate. Reports emerged that while the vast majority of governors agreed, a few rejected the proposal or did not state their position. Another point of contention was the oft-postponed candidate screening, where a committee led by former APC National Chairman John Odigie Oyegun cleared all twenty-three candidates but recommended only thirteen candidates continue their campaigns due to their perceived chances of victory.
In the days directly before the primary, the vast majority of northern APC governors released a letter in support of a southern nominee where they also asked northern candidates to withdrew; in response, one northern candidate withdrew from the primary.Later that day (4 June 2022), Buhari held a meeting with most APC candidates where he reportedly privately backed a nominee being from the south and told the candidates to find a consensus nominee amongst themselves. However, on 6 June—the day before primary voting, national party chairman Abdullahi Adamu told northern APC governors that the party’s (and Buhari’s) consensus candidate would be Lawan; the announcement was met with opposition by governors and other members of the party’s National Working Committee leading the party to backtrack and claim that Adamu was just expressing his personal opinion. The same day, Buhari stated that he had no anointed candidate in the primary. Then early on primary day, APC governors and the party NWC made a joint recommendation of five southern candidates—Amaechi, Fayemi, Osinbajo, Tinubu, and Governor of Ebonyi State Dave Umahi—to Buhari while asking all other aspirants to withdrew from the race. Seven other candidates released a joint statement rejecting the shortlist while all six southeastern candidates penned a letter to Buhari asking that the nomination be zoned to the South-East.
On the day of the primary, delegates gathered in Eagle Square, Abuja to be accredited and vote. The early part of the exercise was beset by logistical issues as there were significant delays in both delegate and journalist accreditation along with the deployment of tear gas by security to disperse crowds.Meanwhile inside the Square, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission personnel took positions to prevent bribery before candidates gave their final speeches to the delegates before voting.During these speeches, six candidates—Godswill Akpabio, Ibikunle Amosun, Dimeji Bankole, Robert Ajayi Boroffice, Fayemi, and Uju Kennedy Ohanenye—stepped down in favour of Tinubu and one aspirant—Nicholas Felix—withdrew for Osinbajo while the remaining candidates issued promises and proposals for their prospective campaigns.After the candidate speeches and an address by Buhari, voting began in the early morning of 8 June and after hours of voting, votes were publicly tabulated.When collation completed, Bola Tinubu emerged as nominee after results showed him winning 60% of the votes with a margin of 45% over runner-up Amaechi. In his acceptance speech, Tinubu thanked his team while striking a conciliatory tone in regards to his former opponents.Post-primary analysis noted multiple potential reasons for Tinubu’s victory, namely: other candidates’ focus on a Buhari endorsement that never came, the failure of Buhari’s succession plan, bribery, and the last-minute withdrawals. The week after the primary were based around the search for Tinubu’s running mate, as Tinubu is a southern Muslim it was expected that his running mate would be a northern Christian but controversy emerged as some prominent APC politicians stated their openness to a Muslim-Muslim ticket. As the deadline neared, the party submitted the name of Kabir Ibrahim Masari—a politician and party operative from Katsina State—as a placeholder vice presidential nominee to be substituted at a later date. On 10 July, Ibrahim Masari withdrew and Tinubu announced Kashim Shettima—a senator and former Governor of Borno State—as his running mate after a meeting with Buhari in Daura. Breaking the anti-same religion ticket convention, Tinubu argued in a statement that “religion…cannot always and fully determine our path” and that he picked “the man who can help me bring the best governance to all Nigerians, period, regardless of their religious affiliation” and compared the ticket to the last Yoruba Muslim-Kanuri Muslim ticket, the successful M. K. O. Abiola-Baba Gana Kingibe slate in 1993. Opponents, like the Christian Association of Nigeria and civil society groups, derided the pick as divisive in a trying time for Nigerian unity.Analysts noted the previous reports from before Tinubu was nominated that said his inner circle did not think a Northern Christian would help the party in the majority-Muslim states and thus a fellow Muslim should be picked.
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