The Financial Times says Nigeria’s recently concluded
presidential election was flawed and mismanaged.
In an editorial published on Wednesday, the London-based
publication said the results of the election failed to pass the basic message
of democracy — that a nation can choose its leaders.
“The election – which appears to have delivered the
presidency to Bola Tinubu, a wealthy political fixer running for the incumbent
All Progressives Congress – was badly mismanaged at best. It failed to set the
example needed for west Africa, a region where too many national leaders have
extended term limits or resorted to seizing power at gunpoint. Nigeria remains
a democracy, but only just,” the editorial reads.
According to the paper, President Muhammadu Buhari failed to deliver on his promise of a free and fair election and “had staked what remains of his tattered reputation on a clean contest”, however, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to deliver.
Financial Times cited voter suppression, ballot snatching
and technology mishaps as reasons for a “failed” electoral process despite the
fact that neutral observers thought everything was in order.
The editorial said results from the election were worrying
especially as the emergence of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour
Party (LP), brought hope to a country “teetering on the edge of catastrophe,
with a breakdown of security and an almost total absence of growth”.
“INEC badly misfired. Voting started late in many districts,
depriving millions of the right to vote. The system to upload results from
177,000 polling stations stuttered, causing legitimate concerns of vote
tampering during long delays,” the paper reads.
“Violence was
troubling. Party goons invaded many polling stations in what appeared to be
blatant acts of intimidation. The Financial Times witnessed armed men remove a
presidential ballot box in Surulere, Lagos.
“More worrying still was voter turnout, which was pitifully
low at 27 percent. If official results are right, two-thirds of the 87mn people
who lined up for hours to collect their voter registration cards failed to cast
their ballot. Apathy cannot explain it. Something, including the possibility of
widespread voter suppression, must have prevented them from voting.
“Total turnout of 25mn votes in a country of 220mn people is
unacceptably low. Tinubu’s tally of 8.8mn gives him the weakest of mandates.”
The editorial asked Nigeria’s judiciary to take a “long hard
look” at the election should Obi and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) decide to pursue their claims of rigging and not to shrink from
annulling individual contests or even the whole result if suspicions arise.
On Wednesday, INEC declared Bola Tinubu as the winner of the
2023 presidential election.
The LP and PDP, however, asked Yakubu Mahmood to resign as
the INEC chair and demanded that the presidential election be conducted afresh.
The parties said the elections were a sham and a “rape of
democracy”.
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