President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will struggle with accepting defeat, according to an analysis of the Saturday presidential poll.
The analysis made exclusively for
Daily Trust by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham
House, United Kingdom, however said “how they (Buhari and Atiku) express
their disappointment is the key issue.”
An Associate Fellow of
the Africa Programme of the institute, Dr. Lena Koni Hoffman, also said
the open popularity contests on the campaign trail through a succession
of open-air rallies by Buhari and Atiku “are fundamentally uninspiring.”
She
said, “The upside of the 2019 elections is that it has shown that
Nigerians are tired of the two main parties that have dominated the last
20 years since the country returned to democracy and have an appetite
for more capable candidates emerging through more credible and
transparent processes.
“This means that 2019 may be significant
not because of who wins but because it’s the threshold for
politics-as-usual and the beginning of a transition to a different kind
of politics and crop of candidates in 2023.”
Dr Hoffman added
that “Lost in the intensity of this focus on the top ticket is the down
ballot vote for the 360 members of the House of Representatives and the
109 members of the Senate.”
She said members of the National
Assembly “are arguably the most crucial actors after the elections
because of their role in addressing constitutional and legislative
issues…”
Source:- Dailytrustng
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