S4 E6:The Nigerian 2023 Elections, a human rights lens

<p>In conversation with Professor Christopher Isike, Janet Gbam and Foluso Adegalu</p> <p>On February 25 2023, the Nigerian presidential elections were held. Nigerian voters came out in their numbers to cast their ballots to select the next president after outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari stepped down. This was against a political background of mounting unhappiness and widespread unrest, insecurity and economic hardship, such as the inability to access cash, high inflation, deadly attacks by gunmen against civilians. While the elections were initially marked by a high voter turnout and mainly peaceful voting, they were marred reports of vote buying, voter intimidation, attacks on polling units in certain areas, and unpunctual electoral officials along with accusations of outright fraud to compound issues with trust in the election. <a href='https://www.inecnigeria.org/'>Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)</a> also failed to upload polling unit results to the INEC result viewing portal as previously assured would happen on election day. It is light of these circumstances, along with statements critical of INEC from observers and civil society groups that have inspired this conversation. This episode analyses the developments of these elections from a human rights lens. Professionally, Ms Janet Uosu Gbam is an international human rights lawyer and <a href='https://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic/doctoral-programme'>Doctoral Candidate</a> from the <a href='https://www.chr.up.ac.za/'>Centre for Human Rights</a>, <a href='https://www.up.ac.za/'>University of Pretoria</a>. Over the last ten years, she has successfully worked with teams to promote and protect human rights by initiating, managing, and executing humanitarian, and human rights programs touching on racial, ethnic, gender, and socio-economic issues for notable human rights organisations. She also has experience working with international NGOs in West Africa, Southern Africa and the United States.</p> <p>We spoke to Foluso Adegalu, a Doctoral Res