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.
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Figure 1: Comparison of Registered Voters, Collected PVCs,
Accredited Voters, and Votes Cast
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| Figure 2: Comparison of Percentage Ratios |
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Figure 3: Comparison of Votes Scored by PDP and APC
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| Figure 4: Comparison of the Percentage Votes Scored by PDP and APC |
