On the 16th of March 2023, IFRA-Nigeria and the French institute of international relations (IFRI) co-organised an online seminar on the Nigerian general elections featuring Elodie Apard, Research Officer, IRD, Benjamin Augé, Research Associate, IFRI; Sa'eed Husaini, Research, Center for Democracy and Development, Abuja; Cyrielle Maingraud-Martinaud, Deputy Director, IFRA-Ibadan. The debate was moderated by Alain Antil, Director of the Sub-Saharan Africa Center, Ifri and Barbara Morovich, Director, IFRA-Ibadan.
On February 25 and March 11, 93 million Nigerian voters are called to elect their president, deputies, senators, and governors. While the country is in a deep economic, social and security crisis, which has largely increased over the past 18 months, expectations one these elections and their capacity to bring change were tremendous.
The emergence of a third force, represented by the Labour Party and the figure of Peter Obi aside the two candidates of the traditional major parties, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All-Progressive Congress Party and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, is a notable event.
There is no doubt that the newly elected representatives will have to face multiple challenges: population growth, insecurity, massive oil theft and high inflation.
This meeting was organised by IFRI and IFRA-Nigeria, it reviewed the electoral process and the result of the elections while replacing them in historical dynamics and structural difficulties of the country.
The recording of this event is available here.
