Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Election

Nigeria’s presidential election came with heightened campaigns. The public discussions it generated were intense. The collation of results was characterized by utmost anxiety. Emotions watered down sensible reasoning at the result collation centre. While some party supporters had their heart in their mouth waiting for all the results to be collated and announced by INEC, others wore their heart on their sleeve.

The suspense was unbearable. Many people developed party-political hypertension; blood pressure oscillated. Some people watchdogged the process indoors and outdoors. Every single vote was mathematized.

In all, history has been made! The lore that an incumbent Commander in Chief in Nigeria is unbeatable has been broken. The myth that a sitting President in Nigeria possesses electoral invincibility has been wrecked. The indomitable Peoples Democratic Party has been beaten by a formidable and doughty All Progressives Congress at the presidential election. The jinx that has bedevilled the opposition party for sixteen years has been neutralized. The clamoured change has got a shot!

Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election has revealed an interesting trend. Noticeably, despite the time lag between the accreditation process and the actual vote casting, the electorates exhibited remarkable commitment to exercise their rights to vote. This suggests that the consciousness of the electorates as evident in the percentage of accredited voters who cast their votes trended toward their commitment to be part of the process of electing who becomes the next President.

Revealing is the evidence of variation between the percentage of registered voters who collected their permanent voters cards (PVCs) and the percentage of voters who collected their PVCs and cast their votes. For example, Ogun State recorded about 44% PVC collection while about 75% of the voters who collected their PVCs voted. In the same vein, Abia State recorded about 83% collected PVCs, but about 36% of voters who collected their PVCs voted. These examples and many others as plotted in figure 2 below tend to reinforce the views that faulted INEC’s preparation toward the election in relation to distribution of PVCs and INEC’s efficiency in conducting the election.

However, in Nassarawa State, about 98% of PVC collection was recorded while about 44% of the voters who collected their PVCs voted. This tends to persuade serious concern as to whether the inability of the electorates who failed to vote was as a result of the actions or inactions of INEC or the culture of apathy among the electorates, which is not unusually symptomatic of a society that has witnessed trajectory of gross defilement of its people’s right to vote and be voted for.

The figures below plot and summarize the outcome of the 2015 Presidential election but with focus on PDP and APC.

Figure 1: Comparison of Registered Voters, Collected PVCs, Accredited Voters, and Votes Cast

 

Figure 2: Comparison of Percentage Ratios

 

 

Figure 3: Comparison of Votes Scored by PDP and APC

Figure 4: Comparison of the Percentage Votes Scored by PDP and APC