Tech founders react to Nigeria’s presidential election

Tech founders have started reacting to the presidential election held in Nigeria, following the victory of Bola Tinubu, defeating other candidates; Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar.

Ripples Nigeria previously reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the early hours of Wednesday declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the winner of the country’s presidential election.

Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to win the 2023 presidential election, the People’s Democratic Party’s candidate, Atiku, scored 6,984,520 votes, while Obi of the Labour Party garnered 6,101,533 votes.

The election has been marred by the controversy of INEC’s failure to upload the election results on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) and Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

Also, INEC centres and staff were violently attacked by unknown armed men, votes were threatened against voting for certain parties at the polling units and also attacked, and ballot boxes were also snatched.

What tech experts are saying about Nigeria’s presidential election

Reacting to the election in Nigeria, The Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Paxful, a global cryptocurrency exchange, Ray Youssef, condemned the handling of the election.

Youssef questioned the outcome of the election, describing the proceedings of the presidential election as an insult to free-thinking people everywhere.

“What has happened in Nigeria is an insult to free and thinking people everywhere. It will not stand. The dinosaurs lost their own state and the capital. everyone knows they lost badly. There will not end. The youth will keep pushing,” Youssef said.

Also commenting on the presidential election was Oo Nwoye, the founder of TechCircle, a startup that helps Google, Facebook and other tech firms to organise events for tech startups.

Nwoye said President Muhammadu Buhari has “fulfilled his destiny of being a misfortune to Nigeria from start to finish,” and described the INEC and its chairman, Yakubu Mahmood, as a real dark horse of the 2023 elections.

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In a series of tweets, Nwoye said, “Muhammadu Buhari has fulfilled his destiny of being a misfortune to Nigeria from start to finish. Beginning to the end. Or as he likes to say it, top to bottom.”

“Nigeria will be cleansed of his evil as she is greater than any individual. Aluta continua.

“The real dark horse of the 2023 elections is INEC & Yakubu Mahmood.

“Using a corrupt umpire to rig elections is not knowing “the game”. It’s vote rigging. Similar to Yahoo being theft and NOT work. And runs being prostitution and NOT hustle.” He wrote on Twitter.

“The will of Nigerians will prevail in the end. I believe it,” Nwoye tweeted.

He also wrote that “A set of people I feel pity for are the rondos who are rejoicing over this brazen election theft, thinking because of a tangential relationship (I follow MC Oluomo 2nd cousin drink for Abule Ijesha), they’ll benefit in any way from APC’s gangsta’s paradise.”

On his part, the founder of Hotels.ng, Mark Essien, said politicians’ ability to stay in power against the will of the people has come to an end.

“I hope this election teaches politicians to respect ordinary people. This is lesson 1. The lesson in 2027 will be worse. If you like, do anyhow, we will show you anyhow. Your ability to stay in power against the will of the people is now over,” Essien posted on Twitter.

He went on to suggest a 7-year term for the presidential seat and a scrap of the Senate and House of Representatives, “Presidential council system! A single, 7-year term with 7 members of the presidential council. A rotating chairman for each year. Scrap the senate and only have the house of reps.

“This is what works in Switzerland and should work in multi-tribe societies in Africa.”

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