A former President of Zambia, Rupia Banda has expressed shock at the number of candidates for Saturday’s Presidential election in Nigeria, saying the figure of 73 candidates near the total number of the Zambian Parliament.
He spoke Thursday in Abuja at a meeting with the management team of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. The former Zambian president is the head of the Electoral Institute of South Africa, (EISA) which has since deployed 30 international observers for tomorrow’s exercise.
“The importance of Nigeria to Africa and indeed to the world cannot be overstated, so we are very honoured to be here in order to observe and to see how the elections will take place.
“A team of about 30 people will be deployed to various parts of this great nation. We look forward to observing this successful and peaceful election as it takes place this weekend.
“We know how complex the size of the country and the size of the population of Nigeria is. Therefore, we wish Nigerian people under your leadership, Mr. Chairman very successful elections.
“We wish you well on what you have put in with the election population. The many Presidential Candidates is unbelievable. In our country, if I tell the people of Zambia how many members on the list of the Presidential election is almost the number of the whole Parliament in our country so we know how complicated it is.”
(Vanguard)
