The election in Nigeria: Government closes all land borders, restricts vehicle motion

Abuja,

Nigeria has ordered the closure of all its land borders and restricted vehicular motion throughout the nation as election components are moved forward of Saturday’s election involving 18 presidential candidates.

The federal authorities on Thursday ordered the complete closure of all these borders forward of Saturday’s presidential and countrywide meeting elections.

Isah Jere, Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service, stated all land borders can be closed from midnight on Saturday to midnight on Sunday.

“Therefore, all command controllers, especially those in the border states, must ensure strict compliance with this directive,” he stated.

The nation, which borders the republics of Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin, has additionally banned vehicular motion from 12pm to 6pm on Saturday.

The order was consistent with the directive of the Inspector General of Police, Alkali Usman Baba.

Only Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officers, election observers, ambulances, firefighters and others on confirmed emergency providers will probably be exempt.

“There will be no movement or escort of VIPs during the election period, while government security outfits will not be allowed to participate in the exercise,” the police additionally stated.

Elective stuff

As the nation takes essential precautions for clean polls, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has began shifting all delicate components for Saturday’s election to the 774 nearby governments.

INEC has fastened February 25 for presidential and countrywide meeting elections and March 11 for governorship and state meeting elections.

INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Enugu State, Dr Chukwuemeka Chukwu, early on Friday stated the trucking strategy of lifting the delicate components to varied council areas had been clean.

Dr Chukwu stated the delicate components moved included the Bi-Modal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine, the poll paper and end result sheets amongst others.

“Once we load delicate stuff, the vehicles along with safety officers and INEC officers will be given the election end result sheets from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Enugu department, earlier than continuing to the council grounds.

“I sincerely believe that early this morning all the trucks must have arrived in their respective local government areas because some reached the council areas before midnight,” he stated.

“There, buses will further take the materials, INEC personnel and security to the INEC Registration Area Centers (RAC) already activated for the polling this morning, February 24. From the RAC centers, both materials (sensitive and non-sensitive), INEC staff and Security will be moved to the various polling units under each RAC early before 8am on Saturday for the actual voting [sic].”

INEC has additionally warned politicians to be chary about posting on social media after voting, earlier than the official declaration of consequences.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, stated: “Fake news is now a trend and can destroy our efforts to ensure free, fair and credible elections. We urge you to be wary of results posted on social media before official declaration. Only INEC recurring officials at departmental, local government and state level have the statutory authority and power to declare the results.”

Broadcast policies

Furthermore, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has ordered broadcasting stations throughout the nation to chorus from saying election consequences until eventually INEC makes a proper announcement.

NBC additionally inspired all broadcasters to adjust to the fee’s ethics and codes by banning promoting on its amenities 24 hours earlier than Election Day and on Election Day.

NBC’s Director of Broadcast Monitoring, Francisca Aiyetan, stated broadcasters need to conclusion all non-partisan programming by 11:59 p.m. Thursday, February 23, 2023.

“The National Broadcasting Commission wishes to underline the enormous responsibility placed on broadcasters during this period, and therefore calls for strict compliance with the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code and the Electoral Act, to ensure a sensible airwaves that will enable a free, fair, credible and open election,” the official stated.

The fee requested broadcasters to notice, for full compliance, the subsequent sections of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code:

The broadcaster need to make sure that the published of a occasion political marketing campaign, jingle, announcement and any sort of occasion identification or image ends no later than 24 hours earlier than election day.

In distinctive circumstances, a authorities official might participate in a service incidental to his workplace throughout the 24-hour marketing campaign restriction interval, supplied the official or broadcaster has no coloration of bias;

The broadcaster shall not let any political campaigning or promoting on its amenities 24 hours earlier than or on Election Day.

The broadcaster might not use any vote obtained at or from a polling station to mission or speculate on a candidate’s probabilities.

The broadcasting enterprise shall transmit the election end result or announcement of the winner solely as introduced by the licensed election officer for the election.”

Big numbers

On the place Nigeria’s 93.5 million voters will forged their votes, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chairman, stated there have been 176,606 polling models throughout the nation.

He stated the fee had made it simpler for voters to search out their polling stations and people allotted new ones will be given textual content messages letting them know their id earlier than election days.

They will solely ship texts or WhatsApp messages to a committed mobilephone variety, which will probably be uploaded on INEC’s social media platforms.

Another huge variety in Nigeria’s elections are the presidential candidates – there are 18 of them, three of that are front-runners.

They are Bola Tinubu, the candidate of incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari’s occasion, the All Progressives Congress (APC); former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who’s the primary opposition candidate working below the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); and Peter Obi, of the Labor Party.

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Presidential election consequences from 1979 up to now

1979 – Shehu Shagari (NPN): 5.67m (33.77%); Obafemi Awolowo (UPN): 4.92m (29.18%); Nnamdi Azikiwe (NPP): 2.82m (16.75%)

1983 – Shehu Shagari (NPN): 12.08m (47.51%); Obafemi Awolowo (UPN): 7.91m (31.09%); Nnamdi Azikiwe (NPP): 3.56m (13.99%)

1993 – MKO Abiola (SDP): 8.34m (58.36%) Bashir Tofa (NRC): 5.95m (41.64%)

1999 – Olusegun Obasanjo (PDP): 18.74m (62.78%); Falae Capital (AD/APP): 11.11 million (37.22%)

2003 – Olusegun Obasanjo (PDP): 24.46m (61.94%); Muhammadu Buhari (ANPP): 12.71m (32.19%)

2007 – Umaru Yar’Adua (PDP): 24.64m (69.60%); Muhammadu Buhari (ANPP): 6.61m (18.66%); Atiku Abubakar (AC): 2.64m (7.45%)

2011 – Goodluck Jonathan (PDP): 22.49m (58.87%); Muhammadu Buhari (CPC): 12.21m (31.97%); Nuhu Ribadu (ACN): 2.08m (5.44%)

2015 – Muhammadu Buhari (APC): 15.42m (53.96%); Goodluck Jonathan (PDP): 12.85m (44.96%)

2019 – Muhammadu Buhari (APC): 15.19m (55.6%); Atiku Abubakar (PDP): 11.26m (41.2%)