Nigeria Kicks Off Presidential Election Campaigns Amid Economic and Security Crises

Nigeria on Wednesday kicked off campaigns for the presidential election scheduled in January, with incumbent President Bola Tinubu seeking reelection against a fractured opposition. Africa's most populous country will hold the election against a backdrop of worsening economic and security crises that have caused anger among voters against Tinubu's government. The presidential vote will be held Jan. 16 alongside parliamentary elections, while gubernatorial elections will be held Feb. 6. Tinubu is challenged by 18 opposition candidates but analysts predict a three-man race, including the two top contenders that he defeated in 2023. They are former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress, a serial presidential candidate, and Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, a former state governor who blew the last race wide open with his mass appeal to Nigeria's youth. Historically, the ruling party in Nigeria's presidential elections usually has a higher chance of winning when the race features more than one prominent opposition candidate. Tinubu unpopular among young voters Tinubu was elected president in 2023 after campaigning on promises to build on his predecessor's efforts to deliver democratic dividends to citizens in a country grappling with deadly security crises, corruption in the government, and widespread poverty and hunger. But critics say the president has not met those expectations and has become unpopular among many of Nigeria's mostly young voters. His massive economic reforms and their poor implementation has had a knock-on effect on the price of just about everything, resulting in the country's worst economic hardship in a generation. Nigeria's challenges, notwithstanding, analysts say the split opposition could give Tinubu a higher chance of winning as was the case in 2023. In that year's election, Tinubu emerged ahead of multiple prominent opposition candidates but recorded one of the lowest vote percentages ever for an elected president, showing how unpopular he was. An opposition coalition formed by Atiku and Obi among others in 2025 to unseat Tinubu collapsed before it took off.