Nigeria’s voter turnout falls to lowest ever as Tinubu wins

Less than three in ten Nigerians who had Permanent Voter Cards turned up at the poll on February 25, making it the lowest voter turnout since the country started conducting elections in 1999.

Of the 87.2 million Nigerians who had PVCs and were eligible to vote, INEC data show that only 24.97 million voted, which is equivalent to 29 percent.

That’s less than the 35 percent and 43 percent recorded in the 2019 and 2015 presidential elections respectively.

Bola Tinubu, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) won the election with 8.79 million votes (35.2 percent), in a close race that pitted him against Atiku Abubakar of the PDP who had 6.98 million votes, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party who won 6.1 million votes.

Read also: Nigerian voters go missing as turnout heads for lowest since 1999

The low voter turnout comes as a surprise in an election where an additional 10 million Nigerians registered for the first time to vote.

The turnout also contradicts accounts of Nigerians who said people turned up in numbers at their polling units to vote.

“The turnout is unbelievable, the largest I have ever seen in all the years I have voted in the village,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), said after she voted in the south-eastern Nigerian state of Abia. “Young and very old all are here.”

Aliko Dangote, the country’s richest man also attested to a high turnout. “The turnout is very, very impressive,” he told Channels TV after voting in the commercial hub, Lag.

“I’ve been voting since 1999 when we returned to democracy and this time around I have seen much more than the usual times.”

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