Manifestations of Ethnicity and Religion in 2023 Presidential Election in Nigeria

Undoubtedly, the twin problems of African politics for ages reared their ugly heads in the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria. Thus, the thrust of this paper is basically to empirically demonstrate the manifestations of ethnicity and religion in the election. With the official results from the Election Management Body (EMB) that is Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), this paper has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Nigerian politics since independence in 1960 has not grown beyond pettiness of ethnicity and religion. In view of the debilitating impacts of the twin problems vis-à-vis national integration, the paper recommends that all efforts should be geared towards truncating the impact of the phenomena before another general election by public enlightenment if all efforts at national integration will be not be a mirage after all. More so, there is a need to evolve appropriate electoral system that can help democracy survive in the face of deep cleavages of ethnicity and religion.