Dwindling voter numbers
“Improved turnout will give parliament and government the appearance of being more legitimate.” – Peter Lynch
It’s official. Turnout in #Nigeria’s elections have been falling consistently. Based on the results that have been released as of this point, Nigeria’s voter numbers are shrinking, when they ought to be rising. Based on our population projections, between 2015 and now, about 17 million more Nigerians became eligible to vote, and INEC’s own figures showed that more people registered, and collected their voter identity cards. Yet, we are on course for the lowest turnout since we began our current democratic exercise.
This low turnout is a bit incongruous with the numbers that INEC published for voter card collection, a number which was queried by someone in the office given the sheer amount of complaints we heard during the CVR exercise. Someone else quipped that people came out to collect their PVCs because it was a cheap identity card, but people wouldn’t come out to vote. I’m afraid he appears to have been right.
There are so many things to unpack in that, starting with the very legitimacy of a government elected by a shrinking minority of its citizens. These things should worry us all.