Nigeria is the second country in the world with the lowest voter turnout, worse than war-ravaged Afghanistan and Libya, a new ranking by Picodi has shown.
The ranking placed Nigeria in 186th position, only after Haiti, among 187 countries of the world.
Nigeria also ranked worst in Africa.
Nigeria’s low voter turnout
PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Nigeria recorded a new low in voter turnout during the last general elections.
With a national turnout of 29 per cent, a Premium Times analysis showed that the last election had the lowest participation rate in the country’s six decades of independence.
It further revealed that of the 93.4 million registered voters this year, 87.2 million people collected their Permanent Voters Card and the total number of actual voters on election day was only 24.9 million.
The winner of the election, Bola Tinubu, had less than nine million votes, roughly 10 per cent of the total eligible voters.
Another analysis by this newspaper revealed that all the 18 candidates in Nigeria’s February elections received only 27.55 per cent of the total eligible votes.
The new ranking
Meanwhile, the new ranking by Picodi revealed that Nigeria’s average voter turnout in the last three election cycles is 29.15 per cent, slightly lower than 21.58 per cent recorded in Haiti, which got the worst record in the ranking.
Other countries in the last five but which did better than Nigeria, according to the rankings, are Afghanistan (32.71 per cent), Egypt (32.80 per cent), Algeria (33.33 per cent) and Tunisia (35.00 per cent).
Libya has a 39.79 per cent voter turnout average, according to the ranking.
Eight of the last 10 countries in the bottom of the list are in African. The two non-African countries are Romania, with 40.92 per cent average turn out and world’s lowest record holder, Haiti.
Top-record holders
Conversely, Vietnam, Lao and Rwanda hold the highest voter turnout in the world, all of them with more than 95 per cent voter turnout rate in the last three election cycles.
Vietnam has a 99.10 per cent average voter turnout, Laos has 98.55 per cent and Rwanda records 96.55 per cent.
Other countries in the top spot include: Singapore (94.35 per cent), Ethiopia (93.43 per cent), Turkmenistan (93.33 per cent) Equatorial Guinea (91.71 per cent) and Nauru (91.57 per cent).
Kogi AD
In Africa, Rwanda (96.65 per cent), Ethiopia (93.43 per cent) and Equatorial Guinea (91.71 per cent) boast the highest average scores.
Methodology
Picodi said its analysts calculated the average voter turnout using data from the last three presidential and/or parliamentary elections held in the listed countries.
“Turnout data comes from International IDEA, IFES Election Guide and local election commissions,” it stated.
“In situations where elections had two rounds, we calculated the average based on the turnout in both rounds.”
The organisation, however, stated that high voter turnout does not necessarily mean high social engagement and trust in the local government in those countries as there may be local legislations that could have influenced the voter turnout.
“Some countries, such as Luxembourg, Belgium, Bolivia and Uruguay, introduced compulsory voting law, according to which sanctions such as a financial penalty can be imposed on citizens who fail to participate in the elections. Some governments may also abuse their power to manipulate the elections, including the voter turnout,” the organisation added.
