Voters in tight Nigerian election selecting new president as crises spiral
As polls closed Saturday afternoon, officers stated that voting had continued regardless of a lot of issues — together with violence at polling websites in Lagos, an assault in Nigeria’s north and stolen voting machines in a number of elements of the nation. In a single state within the oil-rich Niger Delta, violent disruptions led voting to be postponed at 141 polling models.
“We’re decided that no Nigerian ought to and could be disenfranchised,” stated Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee Chairman Mahmood Yakubu in a information convention Saturday afternoon, saying that anybody who had been in line earlier than polls closed at 2:30 p.m. could be allowed to vote. “Now we have been responding to among the conditions as they come up, and we’re going to proceed to take action over evening.”
At at a polling station in Elegushi, an prosperous neighborhood in Lagos the place many stated they supported Obi, voters stated that thugs who arrived round 11 a.m. destroyed poll containers, threw chairs and beat up individuals who tried to take movies. However after the Nigerian Military arrived, folks stated they returned to solid their ballots, chanting “We should vote!”
“There was ache earlier than, however my pleasure is that I ended up casting my vote,” stated a 38-year-old businesswoman who voted for Obi. She requested to be recognized solely by her first title, Princess, as a result of she was afraid of the lads who she stated had torn her garments and crushed her earlier than destroying her telephone, which she’d been utilizing to take movies.
“I’m voting for my youngsters,” stated Princess, as she held her telephone, its display shattered. “Sufficient is sufficient.”
Chidi Nwagu, a 45-year-old physician with bruises and cuts on his arms, stated that he at first tried to struggle again when he noticed the lads attacking the poll field. Greater than an hour after polls had been presupposed to have closed, he nonetheless had not solid his poll however stated he had no plans to go away till he might achieve this.
Analysts warn that regardless of the hype he has obtained on social media, Obi faces lengthy odds. Among the many 18 presidential candidates on the poll, the opposite two high contenders are Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a 70-year-old former Lagos governor who has outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari’s backing, and Atiku Abubakar, a 76-year-old former vice chairman on his sixth bid for the presidency.
Each males have benefits over Obi by way of fundraising and get-out-the-vote operations, and their respective events management the overwhelming majority of seats within the Nationwide Meeting.
At one polling station in Mushin, a working-class Lagos neighborhood, 35-year-old Kayode Coker stated that he thinks the Obi hype is overblown. The common age at his polling station was between 50 and 70 years previous. “The youths clamoring on social media? They don’t even have voter playing cards,” scoffed Coker, who stated he voted for Tinubu.
“We’d like somebody who understands the system,” stated the accountant. “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”
Requested if the “thief” to whom he referred was Tinubu — who has denied accusations of corruption over time — Coker threw his fingers within the air: “I imply … that’s what I’m saying.”
Forward of the election and on Election Day, residents throughout Lagos shared an virtually common sense of exasperation. Voters — and people who stated they had been too fed as much as vote — stated the election looks like an inflection level after years of spiraling financial and safety crises which have made their lives exceedingly tough.
Regardless of Nigeria’s huge oil riches, greater than 60 p.c of individuals right here reside in poverty. Beneath Buhari, the nation skilled two recessions, hovering inflation, large youth unemployment and a proliferation of kidnappings and violence.
Injecting a brand new uncertainty into Election Day is a nationwide scarcity of money that has additional crippled Nigeria’s financial system in current weeks. The scarcity, which resulted from the federal government’s abrupt transfer to take away previous financial institution notes from circulation and problem new ones, has led to large traces at ATMs and banks and has devastated small companies.
Buhari final week stated the coverage would assist lay “a powerful basis free of charge and truthful elections” in Nigeria, which has a protracted historical past of vote-buying. However some analysts warn that the disaster might produce other penalties as properly, together with rising frustration with the ruling social gathering and voter apathy.
Busayo Bamidele, a 30-year-old mom who makes a residing promoting trinkets and jewellery at a market on Lagos Island, stated she would often take the bus to her residence state of Oyo to vote however has no cash to take action this 12 months due to the money scarcity. Because the money scarcity began just a few weeks in the past, she stated she was barely promoting something and is not making sufficient cash to feed herself or her youngsters recurrently. At stalls round her, vendor after vendor stated the identical.
“I needed to borrow cash to purchase meals this morning … and since then, we now have not eaten anything,” Bamidele stated on a current afternoon. “And so they say we should always come and vote?”
Ope Adetayo contributed to this report.
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