The last eight years of crisis in Nigeria have seen overwhelmingly decrease in terms of income and security, with the exception of a “japa” wave

The last eight years have been particularly bleak for many in Africa’s most populous country, estimated at more than 200 million people. Nearly all of the country’s challenges, including the economy and security, have evolved into deeper crises.

Almost half of the people under the age of 30 are without a job and two-thirds of the population is living in poverty. The value of Nigeria’s currency, the naira, has tanked while inflation has soared and oil production dropped to a 40-year low.

Extremism and violence have spread across the country in ways that have profound consequences for everyday life. There are continuous threats from terrorists and Islamist groups in the north and central regions of Nigeria, and from secessionist groups in the southeast. The number of kidnapping attacks around the country has soared, rising as the economy has worsened.

Bleak prospects for a young population with a median age of under 19 have spurred a “japa” wave — rising numbers seeking to leave the country in search of a better life.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1158978511/nigeria-election

Peter Obi, a wealthy businessman who dominated Nigerian politics for the last five years and the fate of Nigeria’s two-party system

There are 18 candidates and only one woman. There are two older figures who have dominated politics for a long time and then a slightly younger candidate that is threatening to pull off a major upset.

A former governor of Lagos state, Tinubu is one of the most powerful politicians in the country, and a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress. He’s a Muslim from a majority area in the southwest of the country.

And Peter Obi, 61 years old, a wealthy businessman and former governor of the southeastern Anambra state, has attracted a stunning wave of support, largely among younger voters. This has destabilized Nigerian politics and riled the political class. He has been cast as an anti-establishment candidate, despite emerging from the political establishment, and his campaign has tapped into a wide sense of dismay with the ruling class. His image as a humane, approachable figure, with relatively few allegations of corruption, has set him apart.

To his detractors, he’s an corrupting figure who has total control over politics in Lagos and the southwest, as well as questions over his age, health and the source of his vast wealth. He eventually reached a settlement after the U.S. government accused him in a lawsuit of laundered heroin proceeds.

He has had challenges as well. It has caused splits in his party and he is the only one who is running. This time it was expected to be from the south. He’s also faced multiple corruption allegations in the U.S. Senate investigators say he transferred more than 40 million dollars into the US from offshore corporations with the help of one of his wives. The company pleaded guilty to bribe charges, and some of the money was alleged to be bribes. There has never been any wrongdoing by Atiku.

But this year, a wave of online organization and youth participation brought an outsider candidate, Peter Obi, to within touching distance of the establishment parties, upending the country’s politics.

The election is one of the most closely fought contests since the end of military dictatorship in 1999, and the two-party system that has dominated Nigerian politics since then is facing an unprecedented threat.

It’s possible, so don’t rule out a late postponement. The last two elections were put off. In 2019, this was announced just hours before polls opened, with officials citing insecurity in parts of the country. Violence appears to be a bigger challenge now in some parts of the country, particularly in the southeast, where armed groups have stepped up attacks targeting police and election material.

A CNN team in Lagos saw voters still trying to find a way to cast their ballot Sunday at a school in Lagos where two polling units didn’t get to vote in Saturday’s elections.

Dr. Chidi Nwagwu told CNN: “I arrived at around 10am. We had to vote because the Polling Materials were late. Some thugs arrived and started hitting people with chairs. I was hit several times with a chair. We were helped by a doctor. A lot of women were attacked, including a pregnant woman. They smashed her phone when she was knocked to the ground.

Alicia Gberikon said: “There was harassment and if you had a phone that was a crime. The people had their phones smashed. It was very frightening.

How Nigerian Youth Participated in Elections has Failed? Samson Itodo, Managing Director of Yiaga Africa, a Non-profit Organization

Yiaga Africa, a non-profit civic group that deployed over three thousand observers, said it was disappointed with the elections. There is a sense of disappointment with how this process has gone. Clearly, we’ve not overcome and resolved, perennially our logistical challenges with elections,” Samson Itodo, Yiaga’s Executive Director told CNN.

As of Saturday 10pm local time, the results for thousands of polling units had not been uploaded to the electoral commission’s voting portal.

“It raises a lot of questions about the entire process because it deviates from the guidelines for the elections. It also casts doubts on the integrity of the entire process.

The chairman of the commission did not address the issues around results transmission at a media briefings on Sunday.

Yakubu reported there were pockets of violence across the country and electoral machines known as Bimodal Voter Accreditation system (BVAS) were lost in some of those disruptions.

In Nigeria, the young population is politically active. But the country’s political establishment has often dismissed them as “four people tweeting from a room,” in the belief that online activism wouldn’t translate to real-world action. Historically, they might have been right. Even though two-thirds of Nigeria’s population are under the age of 30, youth participation in Nigerian elections has typically been low. In the country’s last election in 2019, only 34 percent of registered and eligible voters voted. In February’s election, the two main parties—the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), which have dominated Nigerian politics for decades—hardly bothered to target young voters in the online spaces where they congregate.

The first time he saw the EndSARS protests, he started to feel like he was engaged in politics. “It became a life and death situation for me,” said Ayomide.

Activist groups were busy educating voters and encouraging young people to vote as the election neared. The majority of newly registered voters were between 18 and 34 years old.

“As a first-time voter, I learned a lot about voting online,” Ayomide says. There were many ways to support the candidates, including donations, live updates, and a platform in which you could directly question them. It was a constant reminder of the reasons why you needed to vote.