Atiku says Nigeria can learn lessons from Senegal's presidential election

Atiku Abubakar said Nigeria has big lessons to learn from Senegal, where the recent election brought Bashir Fay to power as president.

Fay, a little-known 44-year-old opposition leader, was named the next president on Monday, March 25, 2024.

This happened less than two weeks after he was released from prison to contest elections.

Fay, a tax inspector, previously ran for mayor in his hometown of Ndiaganiao, but lost to the ruling party's candidate in 2022.

Commenting on the Senegalese elections, Atiku, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 Nigeria elections, said Fay's emergence gives hope for the future of constitutional democracy in the region.

“There are big lessons for us in Nigeria and the rest of the world to learn from the Senegalese experience,” Atiku told X. “This is an affirmation that democracy, based on the primacy of voting, is the best form of government.”

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“Election judges can also conduct elections based on the law and their own guidelines, which give confidence to all political parties and voters.

“Our experience in both 2019 and 2023 makes it clear that INEC’s performance was below this expectation.

“Meanwhile, in Senegal, the reaction of key stakeholders and the public is a validation of the electoral process that voted for President-elect Bashir Diomaie.”

Nigeria's former vice president said Senegal's elections followed the trend that occurred in Nigeria in 2015 and that opposition parties could indeed win in elections held by the ruling party.

He said this lesson for the opposition echoed his persistent call for the opposition to form a coalition strong enough to oust the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) if it had to be unseated. He said that he is doing so.

He added that Senegal's elections will provide inspiration to West African countries.

Source: guardian.ng