Two political veterans in their 70s are seeking to become Nigeria's next president, pledging pro-business measures to restructure Africa's largest economy by repairing its oil industry and reducing pervasive security risks.
The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) announced Bola Tinubu as its candidate to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 election this week. He will oppose Atiku Abubakar, the flagbearer of the main opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP), a former vice president and senior politician.
Abubakar campaigned on a platform of privatizing the state-owned oil company and creating a fund to encourage private infrastructure investment.
Tinubu, for one, promises to promote manufacturing to lessen Nigeria's reliance on imports, create a deep sea port in the south, and expand gas and oil exploration in Africa's top crude producer.
In a statement to investors, the Financial Derivatives Company stated, "Regardless of the election outcome, the policy direction will fundamentally shift." "The previous decade's protectionist measures are likely to be abandoned."
To stem dollar withdrawals, the central bank under Buhari created a priority list of imports and implemented currency restrictions, which Tinubu and Abubakar seek to repeal.
They also want to clean up the oil industry by privatizing the state-owned oil company or eliminating a hefty gasoline subsidy. The government decreased its anticipated oil output to 1.4 million barrels per day from 1.8 million bpd initially due to crude theft and pipeline damage, meaning Nigeria, unlike some other oil producers, would lose out on the post-Ukraine conflict oil price rise.
According to the oil regulator, Nigeria lost 434 billion naira ($1 billion) to oil theft in the first quarter of this year.
ISSUES OF SECURITY
Both Tinubu, 70, and Abubakar, 75, have established themselves as well-known characters who have constructed huge tribal, religious, and political networks that have determined the election winner for the past two decades. find out more
However, both contenders would have to deal with the image of an elderly man leading a young country.
During the 2019 election, Nigeria's tech-savvy youngsters accounted for half of the voters, and this percentage is anticipated to climb. They want employment and economic prospects, and they're fed up with being shut out of Nigerian politics.
The winner will also have to deal with a litany of security challenges, including a growing Islamist insurgency that has claimed many lives, as seen by a massacre in a Catholic church on Sunday that murdered 40 people.
Other dangers include banditry and kidnappings, long-standing instability in the Niger Delta, clashes between herders and farmers, and the separatist Biafra movement in the southeast.
Tinubu and Abubakar claim to be able to break the cycle of violence, but this isn't the first time Nigerians have heard similar promises, and many are disappointed with how insecurity and poverty levels have risen since Buhari's election, when he promised to reduce insecurity and enhance the economy.
"These are establishment candidates who were created by the system, so I doubt they would be reformists or revolutionaries," said Abiodun Adeneyi, a mass communication professor at Baze University in Lagos. "I don't see how they're going to be able to do anything different to deal with the security problem."