The Financial Times of London has described Nigeria’s presidential and national assembly elections conducted on February 25 as “badly flawed”.
The newspaper also scored the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) low on its handling of the polls, suggesting that, if the courts take a greater look at the electioneering process it could overturn the election that produced Bola Tinubu as president-elect.
“Violence was troubling. Party goons invaded many polling stations in what appeared to be blatant acts of intimidation,” the Financial Times said following its monitoring of elections in Surulere, Lagos.
“More worrying still was voter turnout, which was pitifully low at 27 per cent. If official results are right, two-thirds of the 87 million people who lined up for hours to collect their voter registration cards failed to cast their ballot. Apathy cannot explain it.
“Something, including the possibility of widespread voter suppression, must have prevented them from voting. Total turnout of 25mn votes in a country of 220mn people is unacceptably low.
“Tinubu’s tally of 8.8 million gives him the weakest of mandates.”
The Financial Times noted that courts in Kenya in 2017 and Malawi in 2020 had overturned suspect elections, maintaining that if Nigeria’s courts find suspicions, they should not shrink from annulling individual contests or even the whole result.
