Africa’s most populous country will head to the polls on Saturday, February 25, 2023, in a much anticipated presidential election.
Over 90 million eligible voters in Nigeria are expected at 176,606 polling stations spread across the country where voting starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 2:30 p.m but voters who will still be in the queue at the close of the polls at 2:30 p.m. will be allowed to slip their ballot into the ballot box.
The election will be the largest democratic exercise on the continent as Africa’s most populous nation picks a new President.
Aside from the presidential vote, the public will also be choosing their representatives for Parliament.
The National Assembly where 469 legislators, made up of 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives are expected to be elected.
To be declared the winner of the presidential election, a candidate must have obtained the highest number of votes and at least 25 percent of the ballots in at least two-thirds of the 36 states and in Abuja.
If none of the candidates qualifies, there will be a run-off between the top two candidates within 21 days, which would be a first in Nigeria’s democratic history.
Eighteen (18) candidates are seeking for Nigeria’s highest office, each confident of turning the country’s fortunes around if voted into power.
However, opinion polls suggest three are leading the race for the popular vote.
One of the key leading contenders is former Governor of Lagos, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of President Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Congress (APC); another is the main opposition leader and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who is running for the sixth time following five previous losses, and Peter Obi, a wild-card candidate who defected from the PDP to the smaller Labour Party and now leads in at least five opinion polls.
