Youth factor key in Nigeria’s presidential elections

ABUJA - Nigerians are heading to the polls to elect a new president who will succeed the incumbent -Mohammadu Buhari whose term is coming to an end.

As per the NEC data, there are over 93 million registered voters.

The main presidential contenders are political veterans Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar both from the two big parties but relative outsider Peter Obi has gained growing support, among the youthful voters who see him as the hope for the African biggest economy, making it a three-man race.

Obi, aged 61, carries the hope of the youth as someone they can easily relate to, and who has posed the greatest challenge to the status quo.

Though somehow overshadowed by the presidential contest, Saturday will also decide the fate of 1,101 candidates, who are vying for 109 senatorial seats, and 3,122 candidates for House of Representatives seats, making a total of 4,223 candidates contesting for 469 legislative positions.

This year’s electioneering threw up many issues with observers saying it is perhaps the most discussed in the history of Nigeria. Never has social media played a more prominent role in the electoral process than this year.

The youth have used social media to raise a lot of issues, market their preferred candidates, de-market others, and harangue those who do not share their sentiments. For the first time in history, the youth have organized themselves into a movement for one of the candidates with social media providing the platform for them. Whether this will translate into an electoral victory or not will be known in the next few hours.

The issue of the health of the contestants also featured prominently in the campaigns with many expressing concern about the state of health and mind of the leading presidential candidates during the grueling electioneering that took the gladiators to most states of the federation.

Closely related to that were the many gaffes of the candidates, leading party members, and spokespersons, while verbal insults were commonplace. Supporters of the various candidates were not left out as they took to the social media space to fight real and imaginary enemies.

The crisis that followed the naira redesign policy of the Federal Government as announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria caused much ruckus in the political landscape as it was alleged that it was targeted at preventing vote-buying by politicians, who had stockpiled billions of naira in old notes, which were declared no longer legal tender.

Protests followed the cash crunch that followed the withdrawal of the old N1,000, N500, and N200 notes before the latter was allowed to circulate till April 10. Many state governments also dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court over the crisis. The cases will only be decided after the presidential election.

The biting fuel scarcity in the nation since October last year was also capitalized on by political actors in their favor and against their opponents.

GAROWE ONLINE