2023 Polls: Foreign Commentators Deceived By Social Media Hype – FG

According to the Federal Government, foreign commentators were misled by their own misconceptions and the hype on social media about the 2023 Nigerian Presidential election, resulting in their surprise at the outcome.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, clarified the perceived imbalance in the narratives about the polls during his engagement with some international media organisations and Think Tanks in London.

He explained that some of the commentators had the wrong mindset that the Labour Party and its Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, would win the election based on unrepresentative opinion polls and the hyped activities of the party and their supporters on social media. However, Mohammed noted that only the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, met the constitutional requirements for a presidential candidate to win an election in Nigeria, which include having the plurality of votes and one-quarter of the total vote cast in at least 25 states of the federation.

The Minister  praised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for introducing the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which prevented fraud and irregularities during the elections. According to him, the international community now regards the 2023 elections as the fairest and most transparent in Nigeria’s history.