In advance of the general elections in 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission released the complete list of candidates for a number of national positions. Currently, some Nigerian socio-political groups are debating what will happen to candidates who have been marked by the electoral body with court orders. Political scientists and public affairs analysts are debating the gender disparity that has been identified as well as the complete disregard of political parties for the inclusion of candidates with disabilities.
According to the electoral body, “In summary, all the 18 political parties have fielded candidates and their running mates for the Presidential election. For legislative elections, 1,101 candidates are vying for 109 Senatorial seats and 3,122 candidates for Federal Constituencies i.e. House of Representatives seats, making a total of 4,223 candidates contesting for 469 legislative positions.
“In terms of gender distribution, 3,875 candidates are male, made up of 35 for Presidential and Vice Presidential, 1,008 for Senate and 2,832 for House of Representatives. Similarly, 381 females comprising 1 for Presidential, 92 for Senate, and 288 for House of Representatives are contesting. There are also 11 Persons with Disability (PWDs) in the race.”
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Overall, discussions remain highly intellectual and intriguing ahead of the presidential election, which has been described as the most open election because the candidates of the three dominant parties (APC, PDP, and LP) have a clear chance of entering the presidential villa in 2023. Aside from that, our analyst looks at the age of the candidates presented by 18 political parties for presidential and vice-presidential positions. According to our data, the total age of the 36 candidates presented by the parties is 1,964 years. The average age of the president and vice-president is 54 years and five months.
According to the analysis, 17 of the 36 candidates (47.22%) are older, while 19 (52.77%) are younger. In the context of this piece, older refers to candidates with a higher number of years for age classification, whereas younger refers to candidates with a lower number of years in comparison to other candidate (presidential or vice presidential) from the same political party. According to the analysis, 18 of the 19 younger candidates are male, while all 17 older candidates are male. The data revealed one female younger candidate.
The 18 vice presidential candidates have a combined age of 930 years, compared to the 1,034 years of the presidential candidates. The average age of presidential and vice-presidential candidates, according to average analysis, is 57.44 and 61.66 years, respectively.
The combined age of the 17 male older candidates is 1,023 years, while the age of the 18 male younger candidates is 897 years. The only female candidate is 44 years old. Fourteen of the 17 older candidates have a total age of 845 years and are running for the presidency, while the remaining three candidates have a total age of 178 years. Four of the 19 younger presidential candidates have a total age of 189 years, while the remaining 15 candidates with the same age disparity and vying for vice presidential position have a total age of 752 years.
Exhibit 1: Cumulative Age of Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates
Exhibit 2: Age of Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates
Analysis shows that the People’s Redemption Party and Action Alliance are closer to and within the average age of all candidates, respectively, across political parties and positions. According to our analyst, candidates from these political parties stand a good chance of winning if voters decide that electing a younger president and vice president will be better for the growth and progress of the nation. However, the candidates would not be on many voters’ minds in 2023 due to issues such as being smaller parties, a lack of resources to mobilize voters, and low recognition.
Exhibit 3: Political parties and their closeness to average age of presidential and vice-presidential candidates
