So, it's election eve and after all the delays, electioneering and creative campaigning, it finally looks as the elections will hold (to use one of my favourite Nigerianisms) tomorrow. The land/sea borders are closed, extra security checkpoints have been set up and a curfew will be in place from 8am tomorrow morning. No vehicles will be allowed on the roads, and shops and businesses will be closed, so the markets were busy today as residents stocked up on essentials to see them through the weekend. However, despite all this, the atmosphere - at least here in Abuja - feels calm. The six-week delay to the election has had a number of consequences - not least the fact that the ruling PDP will have undoubtedly benefitted from the postponement more than the opposition APC - but one upside is that the rather tense atmosphere foregrounding the run-up to the original election date of 14th February, when the threat of violence felt more palpable, seems to have abated somewhat. There have been lots of appeals for calm over the past few days, with politicians, civil society activists and religious leaders all encouraging citizens to exercise their democratic right in a peaceful manner. Nigerian friends I've spoken to seem to be feeling a mixture of 'let's just get this thing over with in a peaceful manner' and mild excitement at the prospect of finally being able to cast their votes.
Having said that, the number of people I know who have actually managed to navigate their way through the cumbersome process of registering to vote is very small. I met a friend for coffee yesterday who told me enthusiastically that he would be voting for Buhari. But when I asked him where he was going to cast his ballot, he replied that he wasn't actually going to vote as he had registered in another city and wasn't able to travel. Amongst my friends and acquaintances (which is, of course, a non-representative sample), this is a familiar story.
Understanding the steps that a Nigerian citizen needs to go through in order to vote explains why this might be the case. As INEC (the Independent National Electoral Commission - how independent they actually are remains a matter of debate) detail on their website with some delightful illustrations, there are three steps to casting one's vote:
1a. Register to vote (before polling day). This is itself is difficult as the registration centres (at polling units) were only open at limited times. There were many, many accounts of people - including a large number of our friends and colleagues - who queued to register on multiple occasions but didn't make it to the front of the queue before the centres closed. Our nanny tried several times to register at the local polling unit, but was unable to do so, despite having waited in line for many hours on each occasion. Part of the problem is that there have only been a limited number of days on which people can go and register - and for working people, taking too much time off work to go and queue is a problem.
1b. Pick up your PVC (permanent voter card). Sounds easy, but again this step has caused frustration. The limited hours of the polling stations has been an issue, but the chaotic nature of the registration process has also been a factor. One of my colleagues registered in Kaduna but when he went to collect his PVC, there was no sign of his name on the register. The same thing happened to friends in Lagos and in Kano, who were unable to obtain their PVCs despite having registered beforehand. All of this is designed to prevent voter fraud, but there are a significant number of people who have been disenfranchised because of the process. (To put this in context, apparently 68.8 million people of an adult population of approximately 90 million have registered to vote and 80% of those have collected their PVCs).
On election day, voters basically are expected to be at the polling units for the whole day. There are two steps to the process on election day:
2. Accreditation. Go to the polling unit between 8am and 1pm with your PVC, which you have to present to the INEC official to check your name is on the register. Once your name is found, your finger is marked with ink. You then have to wait until 1.30pm. Again, sounds easy, but the introduction of new electronic card readers (the deployment of which was one of the reasons given for the delay to the original election date), again designed to reduce voter fraud, is a massive unknown.
3. Voting. This begins at 1.30pm. Join the queue, receive your ballot paper, cast your vote.
The whole Nigerian election process has been a real eye-opener. It's not easy to organise an election amongst a population of 180 million in a developing country where the postal system doesn't function, adult literacy rates are a little over 60% and corruption is rife. Campaigning is creative: One common campaign tool involves giving out free bags of rice emblazoned with the candidate's face (the ethics of this are recognised as highly dubious but the practice continues nevertheless). Door-to-door leafleting isn't really an option in a city like Abuja, where residents live behind high security doors, so some enterprising PDP rally vehicles we were following yesterday just drove up the main highway throwing the leaflets out onto the road (where most of them remained until they were cleared up road-sweepers a few hours later).
Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Undoubtedly, the queues will be long, a number of card readers will malfunction and there will be some outbreaks of violence. But the general atmosphere does feel very optimistic and I really believe that the prospect of a relatively calm weekend is within reach. The one thing I'm sure of is that I have a weekend of single parenting ahead - Simon will be working from 7am tomorrow and on Sunday, helping to coordinate the large number of elections observers being deployed by the High Commission throughout the country (a team of well over 100). So, whilst Nigeria goes to the polls, I'll be under curfew at home playing snap, reading stories and trying to decide how many times the children should be permitted to watch 'Frozen' within a 48 hour period. And praying for a peaceful election.
