Atiku Abubakar has said Nigeria has a huge lesson to learn from Senegal whose recent elections saw the emergence of Bassirou Faye as president.
Little-known 44-year-old opposition leader Faye was named the country’s next president on Monday, 25 March 2024.
This came just less than two weeks after he was released from prison to run in the election.
Faye, a tax inspector, had only ever run for mayor of his hometown, Ndiaganiao which he lost in 2022, to the ruling party’s candidate.
Commenting on Senegal’s election, Atiku, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 elections in Nigeria, said Faye’s emergence gives hope for the future of constitutional democracy in the region.
“For us in Nigeria and elsewhere, there’s a huge lesson to be learnt from the Senegal experience,” Atiku said on X. “It is an affirmation that democracy, which is anchored on the supremacy of the ballot, represents the best form of government.
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“It is also possible for the electoral umpire to run an election on the basis of the law and its own guidelines that give confidence to all parties and the voters.
“Our experiences in both 2019 and 2023 show clearly that INEC performed below this expectation.
“Whereas in Senegal, the responses of the major actors and the citizens are a validation of the process of the election that voted for President-elect Bassirou Diomaye.”
The former Nigeria Vice President said the election in Senegal follows the trend of what happened in Nigeria in 2015 that the opposition can indeed be victorious in an election conducted by the ruling party.
He stated that for the opposition parties, the lessons are in agreement with his persistent call for opposition parties to forge a coalition that is formidable enough to oust the ruling party if they must unseat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He added that the election in Senegal would serve as an inspiration to West African countries.
