As Nigeria conducts its Presidential elections today, February 25, 2023, search engine giant, Google, celebrates the country with a special doodle.
Google’s Doodle transformed on Saturday, portraying the Nigerian flag, a ballot box, and ballot paper, to indicate the country was having its election today.
When a cursor is placed on the doodle, it reads: “Nigeria National Elections 2023.”
The winner of the election will take over from President Muhammadu Buhari in late May 2023.
In Nigeria, Presidents are entitled to a maximum two terms, of four years each, after which he or she hands over to a newly elected President.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, had people turn out in most polling units today, in fractions.
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In unit 046, ward 7 of the Ilaje/Akoka registration area, only 122 of 691 registered voters had actually cast their votes as of afternoon, according to Joshua, the INEC AdHoc staff presiding over the unit.
In other areas, like in Magboro, people were queued up in their numbers waiting for the INEC officials to arrive till very late.
Reasons ranging from political apathy, fears of insecurity, and relocation from registration areas impacted voter’s turnout.
BusinessDay’s analysis of election demography in different units show that elderly people (even with some physical challenges) vote religiously. A lot of youths also turned up to exercise their franchise.
On the election day’s eve, various Nigerians had taken to different social media platforms posting how it felt like “New year’s Eve”.
For many Nigerians, they are hopeful that their votes this time, will afford them the New Nigeria they desire to see.
Others thought it felt like Independence.
“It feels like Independence! I witnessed every part of my sleep last night, waking at intervals to see if it was morning yet,” Ronke, 24, a first-time voter, told BusinessDay.
“I had never ever taken seriously, before now, the issue of voting, even though I watched my parents perform their civic responsibility everytime, and that faithfully.”
BVAS (Bimodal Voters Accreditation System) were used to authenticate fingerprints, as well as facial identity, to make sure the prospective voter is part of the registered voters.
The BVAS also authenticated voters’ Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) by either scanning the QR code on the PVCs or entering the last six digits of the voter’s identification number.
On Thursday, Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, disclosed that 87.2 million Nigerians collected their PVCs.
Yakubu said the current voter register has over 93.4 million voters, adding that INEC will continue to clean it up with technology going forward.
He noted that 93.3 percent collected their PVCs, while 6,259,229 cards — 6.7 percent of PVCs were still uncollected.
