The Nigeria 2023 election has drawn a lot of attention worldwide, for the first time in a long while we have three key contestant that is add to predict who would emerge as the winner. The Election is barely a week away and the campaign period has been full of all intrigues and skimming. Although there are numerous political parties and individuals battling for control at the federal, state, and local levels, however, the office that is of utmost interest to the citizens, especially the youth is who emerges as the President after 25th February, 2023. The emergence of the top three leading candidates (Peter Obi, Bola Tinubu and Abubakar Atiku) and the array of their teeming supporters has made this election to be anticipated to be fiercely contested.
In accordance with data released the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said there are a total of 93,469,008 eligible voters in its voters register after the final cleanup that includes the removal of double registration and underage voters. According to the figures he provided, the total number of eligible voters rose by 9,464,924 or 11.3 per cent from the 84,004,084 recorded in the 2019 general elections to 93,469,008 eligible voters in2023. The people between the ages of 18 to 49 constitute 75% of the voting distribution.
With this result the hope of this country or the deciding factor in this election rest on the should of the youth in this age bracket. These key major candidates are aware of these numbers and doing everything possible to woo them. However, something of the interest is that, most of the youth, especially in the Southern part of the Country, are clamoring for Peter Obi.
It is not clear where the pendulum will swing with regards to the position of these youth as they are evenly spread across the country both educated and uneducated.
One thing is sure, that the role of the youth to vote in this election is one important issue that is expected to have an impact on the election’s results and their involvement in the election process might surely be a game-changer.
The youth vote in Nigeria has traditionally been seen as a somewhat uninterested group of voters. Young people have not seemed to be very much interested in politics, and their voter turnout has been low. However, they seem to have found their voice, leveraging on the strength and rooting for the younger candidate of the three front runners.
In these last minutes to the election, a lot has been happening, fuel scarcity, increased inflation rate, which is the highest in the history of this Country and the camel that broke the back is the Naira redesign which created a lot of scarcity affecting buying and selling. This has resulted into dangerous protest mostly in Southern part of the Country leading to loss of lives.
Nonetheless, whatever happens in this last week, the Young Nigerians’ recognition that they have a stake in politics and the outcome of these elections, otherwise these renewed hope in a new Nigeria maybe dead on arrival, if they fail to make their vote count and stand with one voice by taking advantage of their numerical strength.
It cannot be overstated how important the youth vote will be in Nigeria’s elections in 2023. Young Nigerians have the power to influence the nation’s future due to their expanding numbers and growing influence in politics.
What do you mean, “debit is not bad”?