Nigeria election brings out the complex dynamics of an underachieving nation

Saturday, close to 80 million registered voters in Nigeria carried their Permanent Voting Cards (PVC) into polling booths across the hills, valleys and plains of this vast nation of 170 million people to elect their President. The choice was between Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)—the incumbent—and Mohammad Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Goodluck had been the vice president under Yar’Adua when the latter died in office. Two years later in 2011, he was elected on a PDP ticket with the support of the former PDP Leader Olusegun Obasanjo. Since then, however, General Obasanjo has decamped from his own party, tore up his membership card, and declared Jonathan unfit to hold that high office.

I was there as part of the Commonwealth Election Observation Team of about 12 people led by former Malawi President Bakili Muluzi. Our mission was to observe the election process up to polling day: the state of readiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), its degree of independence and impartiality, and the degree of confidence the players have in the commission. We were further interested in evaluating registration of voters, the validity of registers, availability of the Permanent Voter Cards to voters, sanctity of the voting process and security of the votes cast. We were further interested in assessing the voting environment: are parties and candidates able to campaign freely and seek support, to what extent was the media free to report on the political process, how did the judicial process work in safeguarding the rule of law and to what extent was the state playing a neutral and fair role as the “prefect in a fair play”?