Nigeria has added more than 10 million new voters to its election register, most of them youths, ahead of a presidential vote next February, the electoral agency said on Monday.
Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said a year-long exercise that ended on Sunday had registered 10.49 million new voters, with 84% of these aged 34 and below.
Voters in Nigeria will pick a new president to succeed Muhammadu Buhari, who cannot run after serving the two terms allowed by the constitution. New house of representative members and governors will also be elected.
INEC figures showed that in the 2019 election, there were 84 million registered voters.
Participation in Nigerian elections is typically low, but political analysts say the country’s economic woes, seen in double-digit inflation, as well as rising insecurity may push more people to vote, especially young people.
The main presidential contest is between ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos state governor, Atiku Abubakar, who was vice president between 1999-2007 and Peter Obi, a Nigerian businessman and politician who served as Governor of South Eastern Anambra State