Adnan Adams Mohammed
The areas of Basa and the airport enclaves in Abuja looks calm and serene as about 12.3 million Nigerians goes to the polls today to elect their State Governors and Local Assembly Representatives.
In all, Local Assemblies will be held in 36 states and governors in 28 states.
Generally, it is expected to be calm in Abuja and few other States, but fears of clashes are expected some parts of the federal country.
Parts of the North-East, South-East, South-West among others hotspot zones have been identified to likely experience mild to high level of tension during today’s election particularly due to tribal sentiments.
Governors wield enormous influence in Africa’s most populous nation of more than 200 million and their support often decides who becomes president. Some governors preside over states whose annual budgets are bigger than some small African countries.
The electoral commission postponed the governor’s poll by a week, saying it needed more time to reconfigure electronic voting machines that are at the centre of the dispute over the presidential vote.
The 2023 presidential election was held on 25 February 2023 that elected Bola Tinubu, a former Governor of Lagos State and nominee of the All Progressives Congress.
He won the disputed election with 36.61% of the vote, 8,794,726 total votes.
Runners-up were former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party, and former Governor of Anambra State Peter Obi, Labour Party, who both immediately contested the result; Obi claimed he won.
Other federal elections, including elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate, held on the same date while state elections were scheduled to hold two weeks afterward on 11 March, but were postponed by a week and will be held on 18 March.
The inauguration is set for 29 May 2023.
