The 2015 presidential election changed Nigerian politics. For the first time since independence, an opposition candidate defeated a sitting president at the ballot box, and the president accepted the result. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) beat President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by about 2.57 million votes. On 31 March 2015, before the final result was even announced, Jonathan called Buhari to congratulate him.
A new opposition party
The opposition that lost in 2011 learned from its defeat. In 2013 the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party and a faction of APGA merged to form the All Progressives Congress. Later that year, five PDP governors and dozens of lawmakers defected to the new party. For the first time since 1999, the opposition could compete across most of the country.
Buhari, running for the fourth time, picked Yemi Osinbajo, a law professor and former Lagos attorney-general, as his running mate. The campaign focused on insecurity, corruption and the economy. Boko Haram’s attacks in the North-East, including the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014, weighed heavily on the government.
A six-week postponement
The election was due on 14 February 2015. On 7 February, INEC moved it to 28 March. The national security adviser had told the commission that the military needed six weeks for an offensive against Boko Haram and could not guarantee security for the polls. INEC also pointed to the slow distribution of new permanent voter cards (PVCs). The opposition called the delay politically motivated, but it accepted the new date.
Card readers arrive
2015 was the first general election in which INEC used smart card readers to check each voter’s permanent voter card and fingerprint before they could vote. The aim was to stop multiple voting and inflated turnout figures.
The technology was not perfect. Card readers failed in many polling units, including President Jonathan’s own in Otuoke, Bayelsa State, where he could not be accredited and was eventually registered manually. INEC allowed manual accreditation where devices failed and extended voting into Sunday 29 March in affected areas. Even so, observers credited the card readers with making large-scale rigging much harder.
The result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Muhammadu Buhari | APC | 15,424,921 | 53.96% |
| Goodluck Jonathan | PDP | 12,853,162 | 44.96% |
Buhari won 21 states and met the constitutional spread requirement. Jonathan won 15 states and the Federal Capital Territory. Buhari’s breakthrough came in the South-West, especially Lagos State, and in Middle Belt states that had backed Jonathan in 2011.
The National Collation Centre in Abuja was tense. At one point a PDP agent, former Niger Delta minister Godsday Orubebe, disrupted the announcement live on television, alleging bias. INEC chairman Attahiru Jega’s calm response was widely praised.
The phone call
On the afternoon of 31 March, Jonathan phoned Buhari to concede. In a statement he said he had promised a free and fair election and kept his word, and that “nobody’s ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian.” Buhari was sworn in on 29 May 2015, the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling party to the opposition in Nigeria’s history.
Observers credit the concession with preventing the kind of violence seen in 2011. Election-related violence still occurred: Boko Haram attacked voters in parts of the North-East, and there were deadly clashes in Rivers State and elsewhere.
Why 2015 still matters
The 2015 vote showed that power in Nigeria could change hands through elections. It also cemented the role of technology in Nigerian elections: card readers in 2015 paved the way for the BVAS machines and the IReV results portal used in 2023.
