The issues in the 2023 Nigerian presidential election are economic, human, and political issues that were discussed prior to and during the general campaign period from the end of the primary period in June 2022 and the final day of campaigning in February 2023.
In the wake of party primaries, several major factors for the upcoming general election campaign were noted, namely: ethnic and religious identity, the role of Buhari and his incumbency power, the economy, corruption, the personal brands of candidates, and public anger with the political status quo. Ahead of the official campaign period, major candidates were to release their policy documents: Abubakar did so in late May but Obi and Tinubu did not unveil their policy documents until after the campaign period commenced in September 2022 with Tinubu releasing his manifesto in mid-October and Obi releasing his manifesto in early December. As the campaign developed, other issues like climate change and sports development rose to prominence. However, civil society reports from January 2023 claimed that the majority of campaigning was not based on policy issues as personality politics, identity politics, and negative campaigning overtook policy discussion.
Corruption Nigeria has lost hundreds of billions of United States dollars from corruption since independence and its Corruption Perceptions Index score has worsened since 2016. However, after the primaries, analysts noted the unlikelihood of corruption becoming a massive electoral issue as both Abubakar and Tinubu have credible, longstanding major corruption allegations; Obi's candidacy slightly altered this dynamic as allegations against him are more minor. Another reason for the low focus on corruption was the failure of Buhari's anti-corruption war, the promise of which was central to his 2015 campaign. While more major issues like insecurity and poverty have taken centre stage, corruption is still a pervasive policy problem.
For Abubakar, although there are some allegations surrounding his civil service career, much of the graft alleged is based on a United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs report from 2010 that directly implicated Abubakar and his family in a massive intercontinental bribery scheme. The report, issued in the wake of the William J. Jefferson corruption case which also implicated Abubakar, stated that Abubakar's then-wife Jennifer Iwenjiora Douglas brought over $40 million in "suspect funds" into the United States while Abubakar was vice president with the sources of those funds being bribes given to Abubakar by businesses in exchange for preferential treatment and contracts in a process akin to crony capitalism. These bribes and other suspect cash transfers led the American government's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to later place Abubakar and his wives on an international banking surveillance watchlist. Abubakar has repeatedly denied the report's findings since its release in 2010. Accusations against Tinubu were also serious but different to Atiku's; in a form of corruption associated with the term state capture, Tinubu is alleged to have continuously hijacked billions of naira in Lagos State internal revenue for his own personal and political aims. Through a law he signed while governor, Alpha Beta Consulting—a company heavily linked to and alleged to be directly controlled by Tinubu and his allies—has the sole right to collect state taxes and receives a 10% commission for the collection. The founder of Alpha Beta alleges that Tinubu has directly profited from the allocation for about twenty years plus Tinubu is under active investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as of June 2021. Coupled with the state capture controversy is Tinubu's forfeiture of about $460,000 to the United States government in 1993 as a result of a case asserting that the government had "probable cause" to believe Tinubu's American bank accounts held the proceeds of heroin dealing; reporting showed that Tinubu had served as a bagman for two Chicago heroin dealers in the early 1990s. For Obi, there are not major scandals although he was mentioned in the Pandora Papers leaks surrounding offshore companies for tax evasion.
In his platform, Abubakar identified corruption as a 'major problem' that "denies millions of people their fundamental freedoms and human rights" before vowing to enact "institutional reforms of anti-corruption agencies" to strengthen them along with creating a "comprehensive National Anti-corruption Strategy." However, Tinubu's manifesto noted fighting corruption as a benefit of its civil service and judicial reforms. Review of anti-corruption plans from the Premium Times noted Tinubu's focus on wealth distribution to fight corruption along with criticism of the idea's potential effectiveness. In his manifesto, Obi placed fighting corruption among his seven priorities with a direct plan to establish the "Office of Special Counsel" to prosecute abuse of power and corruption that "do not fall under the prosecutorial power of existing agencies." While analysts noted the potential difficulty Obi could have getting legislation passed to institute his anti-corruption plans, he was commended for explaining a concrete framework on the topic.
Corruption rose to prominence several times over the course of the campaign period, but mainly specific scandals rather than differences in policy on the issue. In November, news outlets published newly certified United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois' documents outlining Tinubu's drug dealing-connected money forfeiture in 1993. Although the Tinubu campaign denied the allegations, observers noted that Tinubu himself did not speak on the subject. A few weeks later in early January, Abubakar faced two scandals: a campaign speech he gave in Abeokuta and audio alleged to be of Abubakar admitting to corruption. In the speech, Abubakar said only people who won their polling units for the PDP would receive government jobs or contracts if he wins the presidency, thus inadvertently admitting that government appointments and contracts would be awarded based on party loyalty in his potential administration. In the recording (released by his estranged former aide Mike Achimugu), Abubakar describes the method—special-purpose vehicles (SPVs)—that he and then-President Olusegun Obasanjo used to siphon public funds during their 1999—2007 administration. Both controversies sparked condemnation with a Tinubu spokesperson filing a lawsuit against anti-corruption agencies hoping to compelled them to arrest Abubakar in the wake of the audio release. In response, the Atiku campaign attacked Tinubu for diverting Lagosian public funds through Alpha Beta and called on the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency to arrest Tinubu for drug trafficking.
Economy The years ahead of the election were extremely difficult for the national economy as several debilitating recessions and high inflation greatly decelerated economic growth amid increasing unemployment. Coupled with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, food prices have skyrocketed and millions of people are projected to fall into poverty if current trends hold. In addition, the country is at risk of losing its frontier market status due to a shortage in United States dollars and the poor economic situation has led to fears to further social unrest. While Buhari has repeatedly claimed that his administration has improved the nation, some analysts blamed his economic policies for compounding the crisis as massive borrowing plus underwhelming revenue led total debt payment to exceed government's revenue by mid-2022. Other analysts have taken a still negative but more mixed view of Buhari's economic policies noting the signing of the Petroleum Industry Act and agricultural production improvements while reiterating the failures in economic growth, high inflation, rising debt, and high unemployment.
As the campaign period began, analysts noted that the three major candidates had broken with Buhari on economic issues with more business-friendly rhetoric and support for further devolution of certain resource control to the states; however, the candidates differ on messages and detailed plans. Similar to his 2019 campaign, the focus of Abubakar's economic agenda revolves around privatisation of government-owned businesses targeting the rail network, oil refineries, and power transmission along with ending the remaining government monopolies in other infrastructure sectors. The other two points of his economic plan are increased commitments to public-private partnerships and allowing "the market greater leverage in determining prices." While critics like the electricity workers' union derided the privatisation proposal as "retrogressive" and noted the numerous failures of previous privatisations, the Abubakar campaign defended the plan as necessary for "sustainable growth" and good national budgeting. Abubakar stated that these ideas along with a close public-private sector relationship could double the GDP within seven years. For Obi, time was spent studying other countries' economics prior to the release of his policy plans; in interviews, he lamented the inefficiency of the Nigerian economy and floated reforming the fuel subsidy system—the subsidies, long-maligned by economists but popular among politicians, are projected to cost the government over 4 trillion naira in 2022 and 6.7 trillion naira in 2023. Later overview of his economic policies in addition to more interviews showed that Obi focused on financial "prudence" with emphasis on saving money and streamlining spending. Like Obi and Abubakar, Tinubu backed expansion of public-private partnerships but he is also in favor of introducing commodity exchange and futures markets. Furthermore, Tinubu backed the creation of regional economic development agencies for each geopolitical zone, blockchain regulatory reform, increased crude oil production, and tax enforcement/devolution along with the deregulation of gas prices and the phasing out of the fuel subsidy system in favor of alternative government investments. Analysis of the Tinubu plans warned of the extreme debt needed to finance the reforms and policies. When released, the Obi manifesto put emphasis on shifting the national economy to focus on exports in addition to wide-scale agrarian reform to boost productivity. Additionally, Obi planned to lessen the cost of government and backed investment to transition to a green economy amid worsening climate change.
Analysis of economic plans noted a joint focus on agricultural growth to drive economic improvement, but a severe lack of detailed blueprints from the manifestos of Tinubu and Abubakar. On the other hand, the Obi manifesto's focus on improved access to funding for farmers and standardising mechanised farming along with wider logistics reform drew praise from analysts.
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