2011 Nigeria National Elections
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delegation was composed of a small team of prestigious election experts, led or co-led by a former
head-of-state or head-of-government His Excellency John Kufuor (former president of Ghana), Sir
Ketumile Masire (former president of Botswana) and the Right Honorable Joe Clark (former prime
minister of Canada), respectively. The first assessment, conducted October 11–15, 2010, and led by
NDI, took place prior to voter registration and before the postponement of the elections from
January to April; IRI led the second assessment (February 28 – March 3, 2011), which occurred
following voter registration, and one month prior to the elections. Each assessment delegation met
with Nigerian officials from the executive branch, the national assembly, INEC and other
stakeholders, including representatives from the security services, political parties, academia, judicial
and religious leaders, the media and media regulators and civil society organizations. Each
assessment concluded with a press conference in Nigeria to discuss findings and offer
recommendations (see appendices B and C).
The fielding of an international delegation to observe the April elections marked the culmination of
IRI's support for Nigeria's 2011 electoral cycle.
IRI's long-term observers arrived in Nigeria on March 28, 2011, and were deployed in two-person
teams (a total of 12 observers) to six locations across Nigeria, split equally between north and south,
and covering all six of Nigeria's geopolitical regions. The teams observed the aborted national
assembly elections on April 2, the rescheduled national assembly elections on April 10 and the
presidential election on April 16.
IRI's delegation of 44 short-term observers witnessed the April 16, 2011 presidential election, with
17 teams deployed to 12 key states covering each of Nigeria's six geopolitical zones. IRI also set up
a command center in Abuja to: monitor up-to-the-minute news coverage; assist the deployed
observers with technology, security and advice; coordinate reporting efforts; and maintain contact
with key Nigerian entities, consortium partners and other international and multilateral
organizations.
The release of IRI's preliminary statement and press conference on Monday, April 18—two days
after the presidential election—represented IRI's initial analysis of the April 16 presidential election.
As a follow-up, IRI has prepared this election observation mission final report as a comprehensive
review of data obtained by IRI's observers, analyzed in the context of official statements and news
coverage of the entire 2011 electoral process, as well as information acquired via IRI's first-hand
working relationships with political parties, civil society and media stakeholders. This data is
supplemented by the results of two national public opinion polls IRI conducted—a pre-election poll
conducted November 29 – December 7, 2010, and a post-election poll conducted October 20 –
November 3, 2011. These polls measured public perceptions and expectations prior to and after the
elections, in order to allow a more informed comparison of the views and actions of Nigerian
officials, political leaders and journalists, with the opinions of a representative sample of Nigeria's
voting age population. The findings of these
and
lection polls are also interpreted within
this report.
The findings and recommendations contained in this report represent IRI's institutional assessment,
and not necessarily the opinions of any individual IRI person, election observer or any other
individual who may have contributed to IRI's election observation and the data used to prepare this
report.
