LAGOS/AKWA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Hours after polls closed in Lagos, young Nigerian voters stood around an election commission official and counted in unison as he tallied ballot papers one by one.
Youths across the country were up long into the night after presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday, shining lights on the counting process from their cellphones.
Nigeria has a history of poll rigging and election-linked violence that prompted voters to remain on the scene after casting their ballots to protect Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) staff and oversee the counting process.
“The turnout of youths and their doggedness insists that … as soon as they voted and that their results are counted they are willing to defend, so it gives us hope for the new Nigeria,” said Edokwe Enechi, a civil servant, after casting her vote in the southeastern city of Akwa on Saturday.
Nearby, onlookers milled around a pair of young men playing chess on the side of the road.
“I cast my vote at about 9 a.m. or thereabout and we’ve been waiting for the outcome of the votes from the centre,” said one of the players, Anyachukwu Beneiah, who works as a doctor.
“My friends (and I) decided to play chess to keep ourselves busy while we wait,” he told Reuters.
There have been several gripes with INEC, including over its unmet promise to immediately upload results from each polling unit to its website – one of several new measures meant to increase transparency and reduce opportunities for tampering.
Several other technical difficulties pushed opposition parties to reject preliminary results and observers to criticise INEC for poor planning. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo was among the critics.
Results have been trickling in despite the glitches.
By Tuesday evening, Nigeria’s ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu had an unassailable lead, according to a Reuters tally of provisional results from all 36 states and the federal capital Abuja.
Tinubu looked set to succeed outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari.
On Election Day in Akwa, a woman sold grated cassava to other young voters preparing for the long night of counting ahead.
“I am buying food, waiting to fill my stomach so that I will have the strength to wait and endure to the end, till they announce the result,” said trader Chinyere Obeta.
(Reporting by Seun Sanni, Shafiek Tassiem, Vining Ogu; Writing by Sofia Christensen; Editing by Howard Goller)
