Nigerians went to the polls on Saturday to elect their subsequent president, marking the tip of a draining election marketing campaign notable for the emergence of a reputable different to the nation’s two dominant political events.

The primary candidates have spent 5 months crisscrossing Africa’s largest democracy as voters put together to elect a substitute for President Muhammadu Buhari, who’s standing down after eight years in energy.

On Saturday, the voting course of was marred by delays and violence in elements of the nation.

Voting was as a result of start at 8.30am however officers of the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) didn’t arrive in lots of areas till hours later.

In elements of the south-eastern Imo state, election officers had not arrived by 3:30pm — an hour after voting was scheduled to shut.

At one polling unit within the Surulere district of Lagos individuals ready to forged their poll have been despatched working after armed males fired a number of gunshots into the air. Many had waited hours to vote. 

In elements of the Lekki district, machete-wielding youths disrupted the method.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, mentioned at a press briefing within the capital Abuja that armed males had attacked polling items within the southern state of Delta, carting away no less than two biometric voter machines.

Yakubu mentioned violence was additionally recorded within the northern states of Borno and Katsina. Yakubu apologised for the delays.

A complete of 18 candidates are formally working, though solely three stand a sensible probability of profitable what is predicted to be the closest presidential vote in Nigeria’s democratic period.

Bola Tinubu, governor of Lagos for eight years to 2007, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice-president making his sixth run for the job, from the Individuals’s Democratic occasion, have hopes of victory.

So too does Peter Obi, a businessman and former state governor whose underdog marketing campaign within the upstart Labour occasion has galvanised voters disillusioned by Nigeria’s two main events.

Not often since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 has there not been an incumbent or former army ruler on the presidential poll, which analysts mentioned offered a chance this time to elect a distinct kind of chief. Buhari, army head of state for a interval within the Eighties, has stood in all however one of many six elections to this point, casting a shadow over Nigeria’s democracy.

Voters will even select 109 senators and 360 members for the decrease home of representatives.

Nigeria presidential election

Learn our assortment of key tales on Nigeria’s election this Saturday

The botched rollout of newly redesigned foreign money notes and paralysing gas shortages have dominated information headlines within the weeks main as much as the votes.

Repeated questions in regards to the ages of the 2 principal occasion candidates — Tinubu is 70 and Abubakar 76 — have additionally been aired on the marketing campaign path throughout an unlimited nation the place the median age is eighteen. Each males have been dogged by historic allegations of corruption which they deny.

Pre-election polls predicted a win for Obi in a high-turnout vote, however the giant quantity of people that want to not share their voting intentions with pollsters has made analysts cautious of studying an excessive amount of into surveys.

Earlier Nigerian elections have been tormented by low turnout; slightly over a 3rd of eligible voters forged ballots in 2019. Greater than 93mn Nigerians are registered to vote this time.

A win for Obi, 61, whose marketing campaign specializing in frugality and accountability has attracted a following amongst disaffected city youth within the nation’s south, could be an enormous political shock in a rustic that since 1999 has solely elected presidents from the 2 massive events.

To win the presidency a candidate should safe probably the most votes and cross the constitutional threshold of acquiring no less than 25 per cent of the ballots forged in no less than two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital metropolis Abuja. If no candidate clears that bar, there could be a run-off vote for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.

The winner will likely be declared by the top of the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee, Nigeria’s electoral company, at a ceremony in Abuja. Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, an analyst on the Centre for Democracy and Growth think-tank, mentioned that though outcomes will start trickling in on Sunday, the declaration might not come till Wednesday.

Rampant insecurity, public sector corruption and the parlous state of an financial system crippled by rising costs and excessive unemployment are among the many greatest considerations for voters. The proposed elimination of petrol subsidies that value the nation greater than $10bn final yr is one other massive situation.