Page 4 - AfrOil Week 08 2023

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil

Voters queueing up at a polling station in rural Nigeria during the previous 2019 election (Photo: Commonwealth Secretariat)

Nigeria goes to polls

in landmark election

Voters in the continent’s largest oil-producing state head for what could be the

country’s most defining (and most unpredictable) presidential vote on February 25

NIGERIA, Africa’s most populous country and goods – further choking the economy and caus-
sub-Saharan powerhouse, is heading to the polls ing food inflation to shoot up to unseen levels.
WHAT: on February 25 for what is being heralded as the A recent botched currency reform has made
Nigerians will vote in the most unpredictable and defining election in banknotes a rare commodity, and an estimated
next presidential election the country’s young democratic history. Nige- 60mn people today live on less than $2.15 per
on February 25. rians are called to elect a successor to President day. Such a dire outlook has sparked violent riots
Muhammadu Buhari, who first took up the across the country, which have been met with
WHY: position in 2015 and was re-elected in 2019. harsh police brutality.
The outcome of the con- The past years have been painful for the Security is a pressing concern, with cattle
test will be consequential country, mostly due to international factors well bandits creating tensions in rural areas and a
for the continent’s
biggest oil producer and out of the president’s control. However, Buhari’s sweeping wave of kidnappings for ransom in
most populated country. relative success in weakening the Islamist ter- the cities.
rorists of Boko Haram has not balanced out Among analysts, there is a widespread con-
WHAT NEXT: his weak governance, unpopular protectionist viction that the February 25 polls will indicate
The youth vote could be a choices and lack of sound economic decisions. much more than the country’s next president.
factor in the outcome of In the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) They could signal a make-or-break turning
the election. pandemic, Buhari closed most of the country’s point for reformist forces across the continent
land borders – officially, to stop the spread of – with Nigeria’s neighbours being governed for
the virus and stem the smuggling of agricultural decades by the same faces or by military juntas.

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