#NigeriaDecides: Some Facts To Know About 2023 General Election

As Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday to elect President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor, the whole world has its eyes on Africa’s most populous black country.

The 2023 general election as described by most political actors would be a game changer due to the 2022 Electoral Act.

Naija News reported earlier in the week that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), under the watch of its current Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has recorded the highest number of election observers in the history of Nigeria.

The INEC boss said about 229 groups would be deploying 146,913 local and international observers for the 2023 general election.

He described the number as the largest deployment of domestic and international observers in the history of elections in Nigeria.

This revelation by the INEC chair is obviously an indication that the 2023 general election is going to stand out.

Below are some facts worthy of note about the most anticipated election in the history of Nigeria.

First general election to use BVAS

The 2023 general election is the first of its kind to use the Bimadal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voters’ accreditation and uploading of election results to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

18 Political Parties/Presidential candidates

INEC revealed that 18 political parties will participate in the February 25 election.

Contestants

A total of 15,331 contestants will be participating in the February 25 and March 11 elections.

Registered Voters

There are 93,469,008 voters according to INEC in the current voter register.
Collected PVCs.

INEC said on Thursday that a total of 87,209,007 PVCs were collected as of 5 February, which was the deadline for PVC collection.

Uncollected PVCs

The electoral commission disclosed that there are 6,259,229 uncollected voter cards.

Polling Unit.

There are 176,846 Polling Units for the conduct of the elections across the 36 states of the federation and Federal Capital Territory.

However, the commission said the election won’t be held in 240 polling units because there are no registered voters.

Registration Areas/Wards

The Polling Units are scattered across the federation in 8,809 wards. These are also known as registration areas. A collection of Polling Units make up a Ward/Registration Area.

Local Government Area
There are 774 Local Government Area that houses Registration Areas/Wards of the commission.

Electoral Constituencies

There are 1,491 Electoral Constituencies in the country. These are electoral units from which each member of the National/State Assemblies comes.