Official results show that voter turnout in Nigeria’s election was 27%, the lowest since the end of military rule in 1999.
President-elect Bola Tinubu received about 8.8 million votes, accounting for less than 10% of the record 93 million people who registered to vote, aided by a divided opposition.
A newly implemented electronic voting system appears to have eliminated previous ballot stuffing and helped present a more accurate picture of the voting population.
Given that 87 million people actually collected their voter cards prior to election day – a difficult process that involved hours of queuing – it is more likely that problems on election day, rather than voter apathy, were to blame for the low number of ballots cast.
Many potential voters left polling places without voting because voting did not begin on time in many places.
Voting did not take place in some opposition strongholds, and there were reports of ballot-box snatching and voter intimidation in southern states such as Rivers, Lagos, and Delta.
