Nigeria Decides: This is Perceived as a Crucial Vote

February 25, 2023

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By our reporter

INTERNATIONAL

Polls in the Federal Republic of Nigeria closed today (25 February, 2023) at 2:30PM. There were some delays in the commencement of the polls in both the rural and urban areas.

Polling officials had to first familiarise themselves with the new polling technology before they could officially open the polling units. It is mainly for this reason that polls in some places did not start at 8:30am as designated by law.

The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines that are intended to verify voters as well as transmit polling information functioned fairly well across the country. The machines deployed at each of the about 176,606 polling units (stations) are internet dependent in transmission of electoral information to the Collation Center set up in the Federal Capital, Abuja.

In the urban Capital, Abuja, preliminary results so far announced at polling units put the Labour Party (LA) of Peter Obi in the front position; followed by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) whose candidate is Bola Tinubu and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Atiku Abubakar.

Vote counting will end in a few hours and thereafter results will be transmitted in both physical and soft formats to the Collation Center set up at the International Conference Center in Abuja.

The Head of Mission for the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission, HE Bai Koroma carefully follows vote counting at Wuse, Maitama Junction, Abuja, Nigeria.
This particular pollig unit has 750 voters. Votes counted so far put Peter Obi of the Labour Party (a youth enthusiast) in the lead.

By and large, the polling was generally peaceful, save for some chaotic scenes at polling units where voters struggled to cast their ballots in the morning hours.