Nigerians went to the polls on Saturday to elect their subsequent president, marking the tip of a draining election marketing campaign notable for the emergence of a reputable different to the nation’s two dominant political events.

The primary candidates have spent 5 months crisscrossing Africa’s largest democracy as voters put together to elect a substitute for President Muhammadu Buhari, who’s standing down after eight years in energy.

On Saturday, the voting course of was marred by delays and violence in components of the nation.

Voting was attributable to start at 8.30am however officers of the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) didn’t arrive in lots of areas till hours later.

In components of the south-eastern Imo state, election officers had not arrived by 3:30pm — an hour after voting was scheduled to shut.

At one polling unit within the Surulere district of Lagos folks ready to forged their poll have been despatched operating after armed males fired a number of gunshots into the air. Many had waited hours to vote. 

In components of the Lekki district, machete-wielding youths disrupted the method.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, mentioned at a press briefing within the capital Abuja that armed males had attacked polling models within the southern state of Delta, carting away at the least two biometric voter machines.

Yakubu mentioned violence was additionally recorded within the northern states of Borno and Katsina. Yakubu apologised for the delays.

A complete of 18 candidates are formally operating, though solely three stand a practical probability of profitable what is anticipated to be the closest presidential vote in Nigeria’s democratic period.

Bola Tinubu, governor of Lagos for eight years to 2007, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice-president making his sixth run for the job, from the Individuals’s Democratic get together, have hopes of victory.

So too does Peter Obi, a businessman and former state governor whose underdog marketing campaign within the upstart Labour get together has galvanised voters disillusioned by Nigeria’s two main events.

Hardly ever since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 has there not been an incumbent or former navy ruler on the presidential poll, which analysts mentioned offered a possibility this time to elect a distinct kind of chief. Buhari, navy head of state for a interval within the Eighties, has stood in all however one of many six elections so far, casting a shadow over Nigeria’s democracy.

Voters will even select 109 senators and 360 members for the decrease home of representatives.

The botched rollout of newly redesigned foreign money notes and paralysing gas shortages have dominated information headlines within the weeks main as much as the votes.

Repeated questions in regards to the ages of the 2 foremost get together candidates — Tinubu is 70 and Abubakar 76 — have additionally been aired on the marketing campaign path throughout an enormous nation the place the median age is eighteen. Each males have been dogged by historic allegations of corruption which they deny.

Pre-election polls predicted a win for Obi in a high-turnout vote, however the massive quantity of people that choose to not share their voting intentions with pollsters has made analysts cautious of studying an excessive amount of into surveys.

Earlier Nigerian elections have been affected by low turnout; just a little over a 3rd of eligible voters forged ballots in 2019. Greater than 93mn Nigerians are registered to vote this time.

A win for Obi, 61, whose marketing campaign specializing in frugality and accountability has attracted a following amongst disaffected city youth within the nation’s south, could be an enormous political shock in a rustic that since 1999 has solely elected presidents from the 2 massive events.

To win the presidency a candidate should safe probably the most votes and cross the constitutional threshold of acquiring at the least 25 per cent of the ballots forged in at the least two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital metropolis Abuja. If no candidate clears that bar, there could be a run-off vote for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.

The winner will likely be declared by the top of the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee, Nigeria’s electoral company, at a ceremony in Abuja. Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, an analyst on the Centre for Democracy and Growth think-tank, mentioned that though outcomes will start trickling in on Sunday, the declaration might not come till Wednesday.

Rampant insecurity, public sector corruption and the parlous state of an economic system crippled by rising costs and excessive unemployment are among the many largest issues for voters. The proposed elimination of petrol subsidies that value the nation greater than $10bn final 12 months is one other massive situation.