Rasaq Adebayo
Early feedback from situation rooms of candidates running for the presidency indicate that the All Progressives Congress candidate may be coasting to victory on the crest of votes delivered in Northern and South western states.
Although the Independent National Electoral Commision is charged with the sole responsibility of declaring the figures,
results obtained from polling units nationwide at the close of poll yesterday tipped Tinubu to win.
The results so far have indicated the landslide victory for the APC as its presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is expected to be officially announced the winner soon.
In Lagos, a mixture of anger against the Central Bank cash redesign policy,rising price of petroleum products and solidarity with presidential candidate Peter Obi by kin is driving the Labour Party to upset the form book in many constituencies.
The APC leadership in Lagos State had pledged to deliver the state with overwhelming votes for the party, though their expectation fell short due to some circumstances as the state recorded low turnout of voters.
Prior to the election day, there were agitations on whether the elections would hold as scheduled due to various circumstances heralding the conduction of the 2023 general elections. The major issue that hit the polity and affected the general wellbeing of Nigerians was the introduction of new naira notes.
CASH CRISIS ISSUE
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in October, 2022 announce the redesign of three denominations of Nigerian currency – N100, N500 and N200 notes. On December 15, 2022, it commenced the circulation of the new notes while mopping up the old ones from circulation.
It, therefore, gave January 31, 2023 deadline for everybody to deposit their old notes at the bank. After the January deadline, the Apex bank was forced to extend the deadline to February 10. By this time, the populace has started feeling hardship as the new note in circulation was too meager compared to the amount of the old note that has been out if circulation.
It was reported that only N300 billion new notes were released into circulation while about N2trillion old notes had been taken out of circulation. By February 17, the new extended deadline, the old note had ceased to b legal tender, putting more Nigerians in agony.
While the country was battling with cash crisis, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had complained that it could not hold the election without getting son amount of cash. With this, there was still insinuation that the election might not hold.
However, the CBN later, less than 56 hours to the election, released the required cash to the Commission to be able to conduct the election as scheduled.
While some people claimed that the policy was deliberately made at the time to scuttle the general elections, the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele said the monetary policy was to reduce the size of the cash in circulation and enforce the cashless economy as done in the developed countries.
According to him, the exercise has achieved a success rate of over 75 percent of the N2.7 trillion held outside the banking system.
“So far and since the commencement of this programme, we have collected about N1.9 trillion; leaving us with about N900billion (N500billion plus N1.9trilIion).
He further said that aside from those holding illicit and or stolen Naira in their homes for speculative purposes, “we do aim to give all Nigerians that have naira legitimately earned and trapped, the opportunity to deposit their legitimately trapped monies at the CBN for exchange.
“We therefore appeal to all Nigerians to work with the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure a hitch free process for the implementation of this very important programme.”
He noted that the apex bank’s aim is mainly to make Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Decisions more effective “and like you can see; we’ve started to see inflation trending downwards and exchange rates relatively stable.”
“Secondly, we aim to support the efforts of our security agencies in combating Banditry and Ransom taking in Nigeria through this programme and we can see that the Military are making good progress in this important task in Nigeria.
“Ordinarily, when CBN releases currency into circulation, it is meant to be used and after sometime, it returns to the CBN thereby keeping the volume of currency in circulation under the firm control of the CBN.
“To achieve effective distribution, of the new currency the CBN has taken the following steps: We held several meetings with our Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) arid provided them with Guidance Notes on processes they must adopt in the collection of old notes and distribution of the New Notes to all Nigerians.
“These includes specific directives to DMBs to load new notes into their ATMs nationwide to ensure an equitable / transparent mechanism for the distribution of the new notes to all Nigerians.
“We commenced a nationwide sensitidation through the Print and electronic media to create an awareness on the redesigned notes to Nigerians including collaboration with the National Orientation agency to reach all Nigerians across multiple channels.”
EFFECT ON ELECTION
Apart from subjecting many people to hardship as note than 60 per cent of Nigerians do jot have bank accounts while majority of them are not used to cashless economy, the scarcity of cash in circulation also affected the last week presidential/national assembly elections. It greatly reduced vote buying by political parties.
Despite the larger number of registered voters and those who collected their permanent voter’s cards (PVCs) as published by INEC, the number of those who actually came out to vote was relatively small.
As reported by our correspondents who monitors the election at various polling units across Lagos State, many eligible voters refused to go out to exercise their civic right. For instance, the total number of vote counts in many PUs was not up to 100 in some local governments not only in Lagos but also in some many other states as gathered.
When inquired by ECHONEWS, it was gathered that people had refused to vote due to the current cash crisis they experience. The residents complained of scarcity of cash as a factor that restricted so many voters from going out to vote.
A notable monarch told ECHONEWS people were hungry, hence, they were not happy to “come out and vote. On my own, as part of my own effort to mobilise people in my community to come out and vote, I organised a cook who fried akara and bought bread for people to eat very close to the polling booth. Despite that, you see, people are still not motivated but it helped as some who would have remained indoor came out to vote.
“If other community leaders can do this, I think the turnout will be huge during the governorship election in March. This is another way by which we can encourage our people to cone out and vote. Again, we appeal to the federal government to ease this hardship of cash on us. If this is done, people will surely come out to vote. People are hungry, we don’t expect hungry people to go out and vote.”
Again, political observers and analysts said many people decided not to come out to vote since they could not get cash “bribe’ they used to collect from political parties at the polling booths. In the past, some desperate political parties would bring money to the polling booths, entice the voters with the money to buy their votes. At least, a voter who knew his way could go home with more than N10,000, collecting money from various parties that tried to woo him with the money. However, the cash crisis induced by the new monetary policy currently rocking the country has put an end to that; money is no more flowing at polling booths.
Indeed, majority of the political agents could not get their money instantly in cash, as their parties appealed to them, promising to do bank transfer to their various accounts after the election.
Journalists as well as the INEC officials who normally waited for monetary gains during elections were last week disappointed as money did not flow as it used to during the previous election periods.
CREATION OF NEW PUs
Due to the noticeable increase in population of voters especially in places like Lagos where the average of 5,000 new people migrate to daily, the Independent National Electoral Commission created new additional 56,872 polling units to make a total of 176,846 across the country as a way of bringing the PUs closer to the voters. With this, voters would no longer have to trek miles before getting to their polling units.
In Lagos for instance, the Commission created 4,861 additional polling units, increasing the number in the state from 8, 000 to 13,325 to ensure there are no more than 700 voters at a polling unit.
The aim behind the new creation was to decongest the few existing polling units and provide unhindered access for the citizens to exercise their fundamental rights to vote.
It was also geared towards shaping citizens confidence in the electoral process and similarly determine the level of their participation or apathy as well as security and safety during elections.
However, many voters faced challenge in locating their new PUs as they were moved from their old PUs to the new ones by the commission. This, as gathered by ECHONEWS, also contributed to the low turnout for the election on Saturday. It was also reported that some people were restricted from voting by the leadership of the community where their new PUs are domiciled just because their faces were not familiar in the area.
INEC’s LATE ARRIVAL
Another factor that affected the 2023 presidential election held on Saturday last week as noted in Lagos was late arrival of INEC officials to the polling units.
As at 3:00pm, there were PUs where the voters were still expecting the INEC officials. Some voters returned home after waiting for hours for arrival of the officials.
ECHONEWS reported polling unit in Ejigbo LCDA where the voters had to wait for hours before they could cast their votes as INEC delayed in operating the BVAS machine, claiming they did not know the machine’s password.
Lamenting in the late arrival of INEC officials at her polling unit, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Lagos West Senatorial Candidate, Dr Idiat Adebule urged the INEC to improve on the logistics surrounding electoral process.
She said the voting process was not smooth and short of the people’s expectations.
Adebule, who arrived early at the Polling Unit 029 at Iba, was surprised that the INEC officials did not turn up until 10:40am.
She appealed to the aggrieved electorate who had been at the centre as early as 7:30am to be patient, which was evident in some other polling units in Lagos.
According to the former Lagos State Deputy Governor, the late arrival of the INEC officials caused a lot of apprehension and agitation.
Adebule said: “Majority of voters are more agitated. It has not always been like this. I’ve been voting here for quite a while. The turn out of voters during this election is commendable. It was better than the previous polls. People are eager to vote.
“INEC should tidy up preparation and logistics early enough and be responsive to the people. People have been waiting here from 8am and voting didn’t commence until 11am. The electorate are not happy about it. I’m sure the INEC can improve on this.”
Meanwhile, the low turnout in Lagos State may dash the hope of the APC party leaders who had earlier promised to deliver about 5 million votes for their presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
WINNING PARTY
While the situation of cash crunch and other challenges surrounding the 2023 elections seemed to favour the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, in some polling units where he recorded highest results going by the on-the-scene results of the election on Saturday, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of APC was leading in so many polling units across the country though the final result is yet to be announced by INEC.
Going by the results coming in from each polling units, Tinubu is expected to be declared the winner and the next Presidents of Nigeria. He is to be followed by Obi of Labour Party while Alhaji Atiku Abubakar may come second runner-up in the 2023 presidential race.
As at the time this story went to bed on Sunday, the collation and counting of the results were still ongoing.
However, the election was said to be relatively free and fair in Lagos State.
