One week out from the election, the front-runners in Nigeria’s presidential contest began a strong drive to win over voters on Saturday.
In Nigeria, where President Muhammadu Buhari is resigning after serving the maximum two terms permitted by the law, more than 90 million people are registered to vote.
Bola Tinubu, the candidate for the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, rode on top of an open-air double-decker bus as he made his way through Maiduguri in northeastern Borno state.
On Tuesday, Tinubu was anticipated to hold his last rally in Lagos.
Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party arrived at Yola, the capital of the neighbouring state of Adamawa, on a double-decker bus.
At both rallies, thousands of people waved flags and shouted party anthems while loudspeakers played music.
Peter Obi, an unorthodox candidate, was not visible on the campaign trail, but he used social media to gather his fans, or “the Obidients,” in a number of cities across the nation.
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Several hundred Obi supporters marched through Abuja’s centre and out the city gate while chanting and blowing vuvuzelas.
The country is undergoing tremendous insecurity and tensions related to a currency crisis as elections are being held.
In the early hours of Saturday, gunmen stormed a police station in the Ogidi neighbourhood of Anambra state’s southeast.
According to a statement from police spokesman Ikenga Tochukwu, “the hoodlums started firing intermittently on approaching the area command and threw improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs, gaining admission (into the station).
Tochukwu continued, “Three police officers paid the ultimate price.”
Security forces also had to contend with a 14-year-old Islamic insurgency in the northeast and kidnapping gangs in the northwest, in addition to the unrest in the southeast.
Since the central bank invalidated old notes in December and replaced them with newly printed ones, Nigerians have been experiencing a cash scarcity.
However the central bank produced a lot fewer notes than were previously in circulation in an effort to encourage cashless payments and lower the amount of money outside the banking system.
Only days before elections, the paucity of money has sparked protests in major cities this week, with customers storming banks and blocking roadways.
Allegations that the funding problem could thwart Tinubu’s election campaign have caused tensions to flare up within the ruling APC party as well.
