Nigeria is the largest economy and the most populous country in Africa. It is also the largest oil producing nation on the continent. Nigeria is the first in Africa in terms of gas reserves and the second in oil reserves. However, Nigeria ranks 163 on the Human Resource Index. In terms of economic inequality, it ranks 159th. The unemployment rate is 33 percent. Youth unemployment is 42.5 percent. Nigeria, a West African country, gives the image of a nation that has to live in poverty despite being rich.
Even more than this, the North Eastern Provinces are a haven for Islamic Jihadists. Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP), continue to carry out attacks. If it is in the South East region, the voice of separatism is rising. The north-west region is also the haunt of robber gangs and the like. The Nigerian Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), which was formed by the Nigerian government to deal with such gangs, has degenerated into a force that robs and kills people. The people raised a huge protest against this force in the name of ‘End Saras’. Around 100 people have already been killed, including the October 2020 massacre of 12 protesters in Likki, Lagos. From any angle, the life of ordinary people in Nigeria has become difficult.
The election for the post of President was held here on February 25. In 1999, military rule ended and Nigeria entered into a democratic government. After the first six years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rule, the current President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015 with great expectations. Buhari was a leader who stood at the forefront of the democratic movement. Buhari, who is also the leader of the All People’s Progressive Congress party, has promised to end Islamic extremism and boost the economy. He came to power again in 2019, but none of his promises were implemented. What Buhari did immediately after assuming office was to borrow from the IMF and the World Bank under liberalized terms. As a part of this, many subsidies and benefits given to the people have been eliminated. Fuel supply was entrusted to private companies. Naturally, there was a public outcry against this. People started losing faith in democracy itself. Only 39 percent voted in the 2019 elections. In the current election, it has reduced to 27 percent. February is the seventh election to be held after the restoration of democracy.
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Bole Ahmed Tinubu, a partisan of the current president and a millionaire, was declared the winner of the election. Buhari was replaced by Tinubu because according to the constitution a person cannot contest for more than two terms. Tinubu, who came to America in search of work and worked as a car driver and later returned to Nigeria after graduating from the University of Chicago, entered politics as Buhari’s right-hand man. A member of the upper house of the Senate, Tinubu was later elected twice (1999–2007) as mayor of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and commercial capital. Dubbed the ‘Godfather of Lagos’, Tinubu got 8.8 million votes (37 percent) in the presidential election. The main rival Peoples Democratic Party leader Adiku Abubakar got 29 percent votes (69 lakhs).
However, it was the Labor Party’s Peter Obi who emerged as the third force that made a significant advance in this election. The politics propounded by this sixty-two-year-old, who became the hope of future Nigeria, had the character of social democracy. The former Party of Social Democracy in Nigeria became the current Labor Party. Labor unions and leftist parties supported Peter Obi in the election. The Nigerian Labor Congress and the Nigerian Trade Union Congress supported Obi because of his anti-neo-liberal slogans. OB got a lot of support from the youth. Obi’s talk about unemployment, rising prices, and the need for workers to be paid more were new developments in Nigerian politics. Obi also spoke against increasing contractualization in the labor sector. Naturally, OB got the vote of leftist minds. OB came third with 25 percent votes (61 lakh). In the capital, Abuja and Lagos, Obi came out on top. Obi leading in Lagos was a huge blow to Tinubu. There is no doubt that the businessman, who is also a former governor of Anambra state, will pose a threat to the traditional parties in the next election. Obi’s decision is to take legal action and move forward as many foreign monitoring agencies have opined that the election was not conducted transparently.
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