Who is Nigeria’s President?

Between the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the N305 billion approved for the 2023 general elections and INEC’s multiple assurances that it was prepared to conduct the 2023 polls, voting, compiling and collating election results have proven to be a tedious, anticlimactic affair fraught with delays.

This article will be updated as more information on vote collation becomes available.

Written by Hillary Essien

Feb 27, 2023

Nigeria’s 2023 general elections kicked off on 25 February and at the time of press, Nigerians—and the world—are still waiting to know who the next president is, mainly due to the challenges faced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in processing votes.

The tightly contested 2023 poll for president has 18 candidates on the ballot. Of these 18, four are widely considered the major candidates. These include: the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress; former vice president, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party; former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi of the Labour Party and former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria’s Peoples Party.

While the 2023 elections mark the first time that elections have not been entirely postponed since 2011, INEC still faced the issue of logistics and electoral violence usually reported in every electoral cycle. In 2019, INEC postponed the presidential and legislative elections hours before Nigerians were set to vote. The electoral body cited ‘logistics and operational problems’ as the reason for its postponement with the national chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, attributing it to delays in the delivery of ballot papers and result sheets.

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About the Author

Hillary Essien

was a Senior Associate Editor at The Republic.

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Who is Nigeria’s President?