There are fears that the 2027 general elec­tion will experience voter apathy, worse than what happened in 2023 election that brought in President Bola Tinubu as president.

In Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, 26.71% of registered voters participated. Out of the 93,469,008 individuals who were registered to vote, only approxi­mately 24,965,218 cast their ballots.

This turnout represents the lowest in Nigeria’s modern democratic history since the return to civil rule in 1999.

Official figures from the Indepen­dent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed the following results for the top candidates: Bola Tinubu (APC): 8,794,726 votes (36.61%); Atiku Abubakar (PDP): 6,984,520 votes (29.07%); Peter Obi (LP): 6,101,533 votes (25.40%), and Rabiu Kwankwaso (NNPP): 1,496,687 votes (6.23%).

Pundits are of the view that the major concern is the ability of the electoral um­pire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to deliver a credible election, especially with the new 2026 Electoral Act, which the president had just signed into law. Also on the table are the fear of vi­olence and allegation against se­curity operatives being partisan.

Chief Chekwas Okorie, found­er of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), while lament­ing over rising voter apathy, stressed that Nigeria’s democracy is in danger.

Okorie, who spoke with Daily Independent, regretted that less than 30 percent of the popula­tion vote for leaders in elections, stressing that when that happens the leader would be unpopular be­cause the majority of the people didn’t give him their mandate, which, according to him, is dan­gerous for democracy.

He said, “What should be more worrisome to all the polit­ical parties and those who are interested in Nigeria’s democra­cy, including the president, is the apathy that the Nigerian people have shown in our democratic process. There’s a total lack of confidence that anybody’s vote will count.

“And so you go to an election where you have about 200 million registered voters. Only less than 25 percent of that population will participate.

“The highest that we’ve seen recently was when 35 percent participated and I think that was in the 2019 election. Even at that, it’s still very low.”

Speaking further, the founder of Igbo Agenda Dialogue (IAD) said, “If you look at the election that took place in the Federal Cap­ital Territory (FCT) on Saturday, when the final figures will come out, I’ll be surprised if we have up to 15 percent participation. In that type of election, the first thing that suffers is the legitimacy of those who claim to have won. Be­cause if the people haven’t come out to vote for you, and the over­whelming majority of the people sat back, you can’t wake up and say the people have spoken.

“Just a small minority saw you into office. You’ll be going into office as an unpopular elect­ed person, whether it’s governor or president, or in the case of the FCT, chairmen or councilors. So this is what Nigerians should work on.”

While expressing concern over the contribution of the new Electoral Act to citizens’ lack of confidence, he said, “And what happened with the Electoral Act Amendment didn’t help matters at all. And I’m sure it’s the effect of that, which worsened the peo­ple’s confidence in the electoral process that we’ve just seen in the FCT election, that ought to be a dress rehearsal for 2027.

“I’m leading a non-partisan political movement called Igbo Agenda Dialogue. And since last year, when we started, our major concern has been how to get espe­cially Igbo people to participate in the electoral process.

“And now the situation has become worse, making our job more difficult. The electoral law amendment is a moral killer. It’s not helping the growth of our democracy. If you don’t have the people participating, then it’s a very serious danger signal.

“Because when the people have lost confidence, then any­thing can happen to make them rise against a government that they didn’t participate in, then that’s the end of the country.

“If you don’t have the people’s mandate, it’ll be dangerous for the corporate existence of Nigeria. But if the majority of the people come out, participate, elect peo­ple, if they’re claiming that they have the people’s mandate, it’ll be justified by the number of people that voted. And the people who voted a person in their majority, you can be sure they won’t turn around and want to sabotage the government they voted in.”

Engr. Martins Onovo, a for­mer presidential candidate, told Daily Independent that voters are not encouraged to participate in elections because of the manip­ulation of results that take place at collation centres and brutality by security agents.

He said, “When you want to solve a problem, you identify the causes of the problem. When you eliminate the causes, the problem goes away. Why do people choose not to vote? Why did some people after the 2023 elections destroy their voter cards? I wanted to stop voting. Me, a politician, wanted to stop voting. Why would you waste your time and energy on something that’s worthless? So, what I decided when Mahmood Yakubu came with all his lies about real-time transmission, I didn’t believe him. After he told the lie locally, he went to Chatham House and said it. I said, this time, let’s see what they do. I went to vote because I looked at the scheme based on my experience.

“I’ve contested elections in this country since 2007. I know how elections get rigged. A lot of peo­ple know, that’s why they’re insist­ing on transmitting at the polling units. 90% of rigging takes place at the coalition centres. It’s very small rigging that can happen at polling stations because ev­erybody is there. When I ran for Senate in 2007, they chased away my polling agents at the coali­tion centre. They used police to drive them away. My agents were calling me. I said, who drove you out? They told me the police did. What can I do when it’s the police that drove them out? They drive you out using the police. Police is government. Police are law enforcement. They drove out my agents. They announced the re­sults. You go to court. They’re the ones who own the court. Did you hear Bishop Onah saying that in Nigeria there’s only one arm of government, the executive?

“You want to fight voter ap­athy, you don’t want to fight the cause of voter apathy. Voters suf­fer during elections. They vote, fight, deny themselves food, stand in the queue, stand under the sun and cast their ballots. Then they change it, write another thing. What are they casting vote for? So that’s the root cause of voter apathy. If a voter knows he has power, he’ll enjoy the power. He’ll go to vote. Nobody will beg him to do so.”

He insisted that voter apathy will be more in 2027 than what happened in 2023.

“In 2023, Festus Okoye and Mahmood Yakubu, said that transmitted copy is superior to paper. Now, in the 2026 Electoral Act, they’ve written that paper is the superior, primary source. So they’ve done something worse than what was in 2023.Why will anybody go and vote?”

Human rights lawyer and president of the Association for Good Governance, Justice Uhuegbu, corroborated the other speakers, when he stressed that voter apathy will continue until the executive arm of government does the needful, especially INEC should rekindle the trust of the masses.

The national convener, Youth Arise Vanguard, told Daily Inde­pendent said, “The truth is that Nigeria will continue to experi­ence voter apathy until the need­ful is done. Until INEC rekindles the trust of the masses. If you remember, in 1999, 1978 and all the rest, it wasn’t like this. Those periods when you go to polling booths, you would see old men and old women with their um­brellas. Sitting there, standing down, and waiting patiently to vote. Even where voting materials didn’t arrive on time, they would wait. People saw the result of what they were doing. That was when we had grassroots democ­racy. Today, there’s no democracy again. People’s votes don’t count.

“People are not happy, they don’t trust the system. It’ll be hard for any Nigerian now to come out, on election day, to say he’s going to vote. You discover that in recent times, even our young adults, during elections, play football on the streets. If you interview them, they’ll tell you what’s the point of voting? After going there to suffer and vote, their votes don’t count.

“I blame it on the executive arm of the government. The presidency in particular, be­cause they know what to do. If somebody goes to a polling booth and votes, at the end of the day, his vote doesn’t count. You don’t expect that person to come out again. Secondly, the issue of in­timidation. A case study of the re­cent FCT chairmanship election. The media have it that an agent, I think an ADC agent, was killed. So, police, security agents have now turned to politicians. People that are supposed to be apolitical have now turned to politicians. The police, the military, the DSS, the civil defence, and all the rest. So, it’ll continue until the execu­tive does the needful, especially INEC. Our problem is INEC,” Uhuegbu said.