Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has warned that rising insecurity, misinformation, money politics, religion and ethnic narratives may undermine the credibility of the 2023 election.
The report titled ‘Nigeria’s presidential polls: A SWOT Analysis’ raised concerns over the safety of election personnel, voters and election materials, as well as the hurdles posed by threats such as kidnapping, violence, banditry, insurgency and communal clashes.
Noting that the 2023 general election is a significant logistical operation, CDD stressed that there will be significant logistic challenges reaching the 176,846 polling units with election material.
The Director of the Centre, Idayat Hassan who signed the report noted that for such a far-reaching level of deployment to be successful, it would require the recruitment and training of close to 1.5 million poll and security officials.
She said the pro-democracy think tank pointed out requires the deployment of personnel, which number about four times the size of the entire Nigerian military.
On the other hand, CDD pointed out that the negative influence of religion, ethnicity and money politics could also undermine the credibility and acceptability of the elections, if not properly addressed.
The think tank observed that these divisive factors have already played a role in shaping the emergence of the four major party candidates running in the presidential election of next year.
The candidates are Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Bola Tinubu of All Progressive Congress (APC), Peter Obi of Labour Party’s and Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
The report further noted that with political campaigns looming in the coming weeks, key governance issues, such as insecurity would be a factor in the political calculations for the leading candidates as they traverse the country.
The report noted in the northwest, the hot button issue of security of lives and property would have an impact on the performance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Tinubu. At the same time, the secessionist agitations in the southeast could reduce turnout, which may not favour either the Labour Party flag bearer Peter Obi or People’s Democratic Party candidate Abubakar Atiku.
The report read: “Religion is likely to feature prominently in debates following the APC’s decision to contest the presidency with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Renewed youth engagement in politics, a feature of the voter registration period, could also be transformative and favour Obi.
