Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has declared Nigeria’s 2023 elections to be the most competitive since the return of democracy in 1999.
At an induction ceremony for newly elected senators and representatives on Tuesday in Abuja, the Lagos lawmaker evaluated the general elections.
He noted that in the national exercise, “assumptions about electoral performance based on historical antecedents proved nought”.
Gbajabiamila recalled how top political parties and interests were dislodged in places where such were impossible for two decades.
“Persons who had never aspired to political office or whose previous aspirations had failed, succeeded this time,” he observed.
Noting that national politics have been rewritten, the Speaker said the people are in a new age of Nigerian democracy.
Gbajabiamila of the All Progressives Congress (APC) commended the electorate for waking up to the enormous power of their votes.
The 2023 election, according to him, ended the days when membership of a particular party meant an “automatic guarantee of reelection”.
Gbaja, however, advised leaders to accelerate democratic dividends or risk “the total loss of legitimacy that can only lead to bad outcomes”.