votes are being counted in Nigeria's
most competitive presidential election
for decades the process has been largely
peaceful although there have been some
reports of violence in Lagos much of the
counting is taking place by hand though
in some areas electronic voting machines
are being used the outcome isn't
expected till Monday at the earliest
with pre-election opinion polls
suggesting three candidates are in a
close race well I got more on this from
my colleague Peter a quarter who's in
Abuja and he told us more about the
election traditionally in Nigeria
they've had two parties that have
dominated the political scene but this
year there was a a game changer in the
third contestant Peter will be who out
of nowhere used social media to
Galvanize the Youth of this country the
youth make up 70 percent of the
electorate and they want to change so
yes it's now a three-horse race for
those elections as you mentioned they
did go rather peacefully in most of the
country but there were pockets of
violence in Lagos in Bayelsa state which
is in the oil producing Niger Delta but
we've just heard from the head of the
Electoral commission here in Nigeria
Mahmoud yakubu he acknowledged that
there were some problems but said
accounting has begun and hopefully by
tomorrow or early Tuesday we shall we
should begin to get an idea of who the
next president of Nigeria is
and Peter whoever wins facing faces some
really daunting challenges and and huge
problems in Nigeria
you're right Ben I mean uh sometimes you
wonder why anyone will want to be the
president of this country simply because
of the problems the plethora of problems
here in Nigeria insecurity is Right
kidnappings for ransoms there's a
secessionist movement in the southeast
of the country in the Northwest there's
banditry then there's a huge cash crunch
simply because a few weeks ago the
government decided to replace the old
naira notes that's the local currency
but when people took their notes to the
banks to change them to the new ones
there was a shortage so there's a huge
cash shortage here in Nigeria there's
the cost of living crisis brought upon
by the war in Ukraine as well as the
covid-19
pandemic so yes a lot of problems on the
entry of whoever wins these elections
and Peter just a last thought I mean how
significant do you think these elections
are in terms of democracy in Africa as a
whole and as an example of a really
competitive election it's good for the
continent
absolutely I mean I had a chat with the
former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta
who's here in Nigeria as the head of the
African Union Observer Mission and he
said listen this is a huge democracy the
largest country uh on the continent by
population 87
000 million people are beg your pardon
eligible to vote and he said if Nigeria
gets it right that means the rest of
Africa get it right so elections of huge
significance here in Nigeria Ben