Nigeria’s External Image and Global Responses to the Postponing of the 2019 General Elections: A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract

This paper interrogates the postponement of the 2019 general elections in Nigeria and the attendant international responses it elicited. It noted that Nigeria’s national elections had been similarly postponed in 2011 and 2015, respectively. However, the 2019 postponement attracted a lot of local and international attention given the growing political consciousness of the electorates, the timing of the postponement and global expectations. In other words, the postponement had far reaching effects on the nation’s external image and drew notable responses because of the place of Nigeria in Africa’s democracy and global politics. Based on preliminary investigation gleaned from reports, comments and opinions used as instruments to measure the effects of the electoral processes, the paper upholds that the postponement of the February 16, 2019 elections to February 23, 2019, just few hours to its commencement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the basis of logistics and operations did not portray the nation well in the diplomatic community. Therefore, initial responses and comments from the International Elections Observation Missions, the United Kingdom and the United States appeared not to have properly gauged the quantum of damages done to Nigeria by the re-scheduling of the election dates as comments and responses seems to have, at best, been couched to douse tension and to avoid diplomatic blunder and row. The paper concluded that since the damage had been done, it was incumbent on the citizens, diplomats, scholars and INEC to redress the image of the country in the global community through citizenship diplomacy, good representations, writings that aimed at correcting the anomaly to project the country well in the diaspora and adequate preparation and conduct for the next elections.