Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a renowned pro-democracy group, has revealed four key issues that will determine the voting pattern in the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections.
The group explained that Saturday’s polls will be very tight and closely contested by Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and has remain very difficult to predict who would win.
Tinubu is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Atiku is for the Peoples Democratic Party, Obi is carrying the flag of the Labour Party, LP, while Kwankwaso is the flagbearer of the New Nigerian Peoples Party, NNPP.
According to the pre-election brief signed by the EAC Chairman, Professor Adele Jinadu and CDD Director, Idayat Hassan, identity, insecurity, institutions, information disorder and inter and intra party squabbles are five key issues that will determine the voting pattern of the election.
The CDD pointed out that all six geopolitical zones of the country are faced with insecurity issues, which has led to the deployment of the Nigerian military across the federation.
“Northern states are engulfed in long-standing violence with extremist jihadist groups, criminal bandit gangs, and other non-state armed groups who are engaged in deadly attacks against local communities.
“In the south, civil unrest continues against the backdrop of ongoing violence between farmers and herders and secessionist agitators.
“The situation is further complicated by fuel and currency scarcity which is increasing economic hardships on the more than 130 million Nigerians classified as multi-dimensionally poor,” the group said.
The elections would come on Saturday and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has declared its readiness to conduct the polls.