By Christopher Arko
Accra, Feb.25 GNA -Voting in Nigeria’s highly competitive 2023 General Election commenced at 0700 hours on Saturday, February 25, 2023, with voters in long queues at polling stations across the country.
The 2023 Presidential and Legislative elections in Nigeria are the 7th in the country’s 23 years of unbroken democratic governance.
A total of 93, 469,008 registered voters are expected to cast their ballots in 176,846 polling stations across 774 local government areas.
The polls are expected to close at 1400 hours unless extended by the Electoral Commission owing to a late start in some polling stations.
There are 12,163 candidates fielded by the 18 political parties to contest for the Senatorial, House of Representatives, State Assembly, Governorship and Presidential race.
The candidates are competing for 109 Senatorial seats, 360 House of Representatives, 993 State Assembly, 28 governorship and the office of the President.
Out of the 12,163 candidates contesting for the 2023 General Election, only 1,524 are women, which represents 12.5 per cent of the contestants.
Also, out of the 18 presidential candidates in the 2023 elections, only one is a woman.
Political analysts say out of the 18 candidates contesting for the presidency, only three have a realistic chance of winning the election.
The three are Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
The results of the general election are expected to be collated by Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials at Abuja, the national capital.
The presidential candidate who wins 50 per cent plus of the votes would win the presidential contest and govern for four years.
If no candidate gets the required number of votes in the first round, there would be a run-off between the top two candidates.
GNA