Public Affairs Analyst

The much awaited February 23, 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections have held with incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari most likely to retain his seat going by the already collated results as of the time of writing this piece. I was a Nigeria Women Trust Fund accredited domestic observer in the elections and have been doing media rounds commenting on the elections. I have mixed feelings about the polls but first, what are those things that went well during the polls? Nigerians were enthusiastic about the elections and turned out in large numbers to cast their ballot. In many polling units, they were even there before the opening of polls at 8am. There was priority voting for the Persons with Disabilities, the elderly people, pregnant women, and nursing mothers. In order to guarantee an inclusive electoral process, there was braille ballot for the visually impaired who can use it, and, there were also magnifying glasses for persons with albinism. Internally Displaced Per

There is no bigger trending news in the country other than the provocative postponement of last Saturday’s national elections till the coming Saturday.   The Independent National Electoral Commission has raised our hopes to high heavens only to dash it at the very last minute. Outrage, vituperations and tongue-lashing rented the air since last Saturday. People are justifiably angry over the disappointing false start to a long awaited exercise. This newspaper was very apt when it said in yesterday’s editorial that “The cost to the economy and the implications to our political development and global reputation are enormous. One estimate puts the loss to Gross Domestic Product at N7.73 trillion for Saturday alone, which will be repeated every Election Day when the country is locked down. An economist, Bismark Rewane, calculates a further “opportunity cost” loss of $4 billion to $5 billion for businesses.   Companies, individuals and groups have been put in disarray, just as social act

The die is cast! It’s now 72 hours to the D-Day! The long-awaited 2019 general election is here with us. On my own part, while the political parties and candidates have been mounting the soap boxes at campaign rallies trying their best to woo voters, I have been busy building the capacity of election stakeholders including the media, civil society groups and security agencies. I have also been behind microphones on many radio and television stations educating, sensitising and mobilising for peaceful and successful polls. There are many things unique in the forthcoming elections. The elections will go down in Nigerian history as the costliest. A whopping N242bn has been earmarked for the polls by the Federal Government, N189bn of that sum goes to the Independent National Electoral Commission while the remaining N53bn is shared out to the various security agencies ranging from the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services, the Niger

A two-year notice of commencement of the 2019 elections is down to just 10 days! Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission had announced the dates for the 2019 elections on March 9, 2017 and released the Timetable and Schedule of Activities on January 9, 2018. One of the key activities conducted by the Electoral Management Body is the phased Continuous Voter Registration which began on April 27, 2017 and was suspended on August 31, 2018. I must say that a lot of enthusiasm was shown by many Nigerians who trooped out to register during the voter registration. In the course of the exercise, INEC also addressed requests for transfer and replacement of lost or mutilated PVCs.   Also, previously registered voters who had yet to collect their PVCs were given opportunities to do so.   As a result, some 14,283,734 additional registrants were captured during the exercises. This brought the total number of registrants from 69,720,350 as of April 27, 2017 to 84,004,084. While