Data signals Nigeria’s lowest-ever voter turnout

Nigeria’s 2023 presidential elections look set to be marred yet again by low voter turnout, going by data from some states that have published results.

Among the nine states where results have been published by INEC, only Lagos had a higher voter turnout in 2023 (22 percent) compared to the last election in 2019 (21 percent).

Voter turnout was calculated by dividing the total number of votes cast by the number of collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).

The marginal increase in the voter turnout in Lagos was not enough to lift Nigeria’s commercial capital from notching the lowest turnout of all the states declared so far.

Elections in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest democracy, have been dogged by low voter turnout which has declined every year since the 2003 election.

With the full results of 27 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) still to come, the voter turnout may yet improve.

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Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kwara,Ogun, Ondo and Osun all saw a decline in voter turnout in 2023 compared to 2019.

Jigawa state recorded the biggest slump in voter turnout as only 42 percent of Nigerians who collected their PVCs in the Northern state voted on February 25. That’s down from 71 percent in 2019.

Ekiti, Kwara, Osun and Ogun states, all sitting south west of Nigeria, followed with the biggest drop in voter turnout.

Only 33 percent of Nigerians who collected their PVCs in the South Western state of Ekiti voted compared to the 59 percent that voted in 2019.

In Kwara state, only 32 percent of people with PVCs voted compared to 42.3 percent. In Osun, the voter turnout was 48 percent, lower than the 58 percent in 2019. In Ogun, the voter turnout was 27 percent compared to 36 percent in 2019.

In the northern Nigerian state of Gombe, voter turnout slumped to 35 percent from 44 percent in 2019.

In Ondo state, the turnout fell to 33 percent from 40 percent in 2019 while Enugu’s numbers declined marginally to 24 percent from 35 percent.