Presidential Election: 15 Things you should know

As Nigeria heads to the ballot to choose a President and legislative leaders on Saturday, February 16, 2019, we have put together a couple of numbers worth recalling, ahead of the vote.

Call it the numbers game and you’d be right on the money….

1...84,004,084 Nigerians registered to vote in the 2019 elections.

2...The Northwest currently has the highest number of registered voters at 20,158,100. That hands the Northwest 24 percent of the registered vote total.

3...The Southwest region comes second with 16,292,212 registered voters (19.39%), while the North-central has 13,366,070 registered voters (15.91%), and the south-south has 12,841,279 registered voters (15.29%).

4...The northeast region and the southeast region come last with the total number of registered voters; with 11,289,293 (13.44%) and 10,057,130 voters (11.97%) respectively.

5...Of the total 84 million voters, there are more registered male voters (44,405,439) than female voters (39,598,645).

6...The male population of registered voters make up 52.86% of the total voter register with registered female voters making up the remaining 47.14%.

7...There are 15,170,608 newly registered voters.

The Map of Nigeria showing 36 states and the capital Abuja (World Watch) ece-auto-gen

8...Voter turnout in the 2015 election was 29.4 million, or 44 percent of the 67.4 million registered voters.

For 2019, the number of registered voters has risen by a quarter to 84 million, with just over half of them aged 18-35. That means there is a 25 percent rise in registered voters from 2015.

9...Voter turnout in 2015 was 44 percent. It remains to be seen what the percentage turnout in 2019 will be.

10...Nigeria has never elected a woman president or state governor.

Women only make up 6 percent of the 469-member national assembly.

11...For national and gubernatorial elections, women make up roughly one-in-eight of the 8,878 total candidates, while for the presidency alone they are 7 percent of the 71 candidates.

12...You are not allowed to campaign, cajole voters or take your smartphone within 300 meters of a polling unit.

13...51 percent of registered voters are young people aged 18-35. This is also the first election where people born at the onset of Nigeria’s 4th republic which commenced in 1999, will be eligible to vote.

A cross section of Nigerian voters (Punch) ece-auto-gen

14...This will be Nigeria's sixth election since returning to democracy in 1999, after decades of military rule interspersed with bouts of pseudo civilian dispensations.

15..The presidential candidate with the most votes will be declared winner of the election as long as they have at least one-quarter of the vote cast in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital (that is 24 states).

Otherwise there is a run-off.