What to keep in mind before filing your taxes this year, according to tax experts.
It may come as no surprise that, on average, Americans spend 13 hours and $250 annually to file their taxes. As far as arduous adult tasks go, this one is among the biggest time and money sucks. Adding to the stress is the confounding web of rules.
As the tax filing deadline approaches — this year, it’s Tuesday, April 18 — Americans, yet again, contend with a barrage of options and intricacies that vary based on their circumstances. To use a tax filing software or go to an accountant? How to claim income from a side gig? What’s going on with the child tax credit? What are credits in the first place? Is it possible to get all this done for free?
Tax professionals encounter their fair share of questions during filing season. As more Americans shift to contract work or supplement their income with alternative revenue streams — earnings where taxes aren’t withheld from your paycheck — more people are unsure of how to account for this income. However, people often have free tax resources, answering these questions and more, at their fingertips courtesy of the IRS itself, says Caroline Bruckner, a tax professor and the managing director of the Kogod Tax Policy Center at American University. “Do not hesitate to go to the IRS website to try to figure out the answers to basic tax questions,” she says. Still, there are plenty of questions taxpayers may not think to ask until they’re knee-deep in tax preparation.
Though this is by no means an exhaustive list of answers to those questions, below, tax professionals clear up some tax misconceptions and offer helpful advice to make filing your taxes only a moderate pain.
Why is filing a tax return so complicated?
In countries like the Netherlands, Japan, and Sweden, taxpayers simply review a government form that has already calculated their taxes. In America, the process could be that simple for over 40 percent of households, according to one paper, but it is decidedly less straightforward.
Until Prohibition, the government was funded by excise taxes (taxes on specific goods at the time they’re purchased) and taxes on booze, Bruckner says. (Fun fact: Pre-Prohibition, alcohol was taxed differently and accounted for nearly 40 percent of government revenue.) “To make way for Prohibition, in 1913, [Congress] created an amendment that allowed the federal government to institute federal income taxes,” she says, “only on the richest people.” Around this time, states began adopting income tax in addition to federal income tax.
By World War II, paying income tax was expanded beyond the highest earners and companies and withholding on paychecks was instituted. In the decades since, “Congress has increasingly relied on the tax system as a means to deliver anti-poverty programs” to low-income families, Bruckner says, through credits such as the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. Incorporating poverty reduction measures into the tax code makes filing taxes more complicated, says Beverly Moran, a law professor emerita at Vanderbilt University who focuses on federal income tax, “and the more complicated you make it, the harder it is for anybody to figure that out.” Two common issues preventing a more streamlined tax filing process, Vox’s Dylan Matthews reported in 2022: reporting self-employment income and itemized deductions.
Low-income people, who may not have time to collect a year’s worth of receipts or have enough money to seek a tax preparer, may miss out on credits and refunds. A complex system also opens the door for companies to charge for tax preparation software. Because these programs are money earners, companies like TurboTax lobbied the government to prevent free electronic filing. “There’s the tremendous benefit for these big companies that do pay tax returns,” Moran says, “because if tax returns were simple, you would do them yourself. But they get so complicated that people get afraid” — afraid of being audited, of owing thousands of dollars, of the stress of calculating expenses.
Who can file for free?
Since the process for filing taxes is notoriously complex, many people outsource the preparation. Even online services that claim to be free may require a payment after you’ve spent precious hours uploading all of your info. However, the IRS has a program called Free File where people earning $73,000 a year or less can file their tax return at no cost through free tax preparation software. The IRS partners with 11 online tax preparation companies, like ezTaxReturn.com and FileYourTaxes.com, and each has its own income and state eligibility requirements, so make sure to double-check before getting started. (A heads up: H&R Block and TurboTax are not a part of Free File.)
“Be aware that there are a number of different ways to get free tax help,” Moran says. “Don’t be dissuaded, because there are going to be a lot of strategies that companies are going to use to get you to the point where your return is done and then all of a sudden it’s $50 and you’re tired and frustrated and you just say, ‘All right, I’m going to pay the $50.’ You don’t have to pay that $50.”
Only choose a tax software that is listed on the IRS website. Searching for free tax software on Google often yields misleading options, with software that sometimes isn’t actually free ranking highly in search results, Moran says. If you are asked to pay while using tax prep software, Moran recommends switching to a different provider. Restarting the process can be frustrating, but if you qualify for free filing, you shouldn’t be required to pay.
Before you sit down to file, make sure you have the following information ready: income statements like W-2s or 1099s, adjustments to income (like student loan interest), dependent and spouse information, if applicable, and prior year adjusted gross income (this includes your wages, dividends, capital gains, business income, and retirement distributions).
The IRS also offers another free tax filing program called Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. People who make $60,000 or less, people with disabilities, and those who speak limited English can receive free in-person tax preparation from volunteer tax professionals. The Tax Counseling for the Elderly program — another free tax service — is available for people 60 years old and older. You can find a VITA or TCE site near you via an online lookup tool. In general, appointments are required, and sites are often overwhelmed, says Elaine Maag, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, so try to get an appointment early.
The Defense Department offers free tax software for active-duty service members, their families, members of the National Guard and reserve, and retired and honorably discharged service members called MilTax.
For those who make over $73,000, you can file for free using Free File Fillable Forms, where you enter your tax information yourself without the guidance of software. Keep in mind that this is for folks who have a good handle on their taxes and do not need much assistance. For simple tax returns (all you have is a W-2, for example), you can file your taxes with the free versions of TurboTax and H&R Block.
If you have any income beyond W-2 pay, consider working with a certified public accountant or enrolled agent
As more Americans bolster their income with side work or opt for self-employment, their tax returns get increasingly complicated. Because you are not an employee with the company, taxes aren’t withheld from any income you earn from, say, selling items on Etsy or driving Uber. You’ll need to pay self-employment tax for earnings of $400 or more for your side hustle. You can also use a portion of your mortgage, rent, and health insurance premiums as self-employment tax deductions. A certified public accountant or enrolled agent understands the complexities of tax law and can ensure you’re making the most of deductions and not paying more (or less) tax than you need to.
“They’re helping you maximize your deductions,” says Melanie Lauridsen, director of tax practice and ethics for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, “and how to better organize yourself to get the maximum [deductions]. You really don’t need to pay more taxes than what you really owe.” (Getting married, moving states, buying a home, having children, and holding complex stock investments can further complicate your taxes; a tax preparer can help you file in those situations, too.)
If you’re going to pay more than $1,000 in taxes on any income that is not subject to withholding, you need to pay these taxes quarterly, Bruckner says, or else you may face a penalty. This is because we have a pay-as-you-go tax system; any time you earn money, the government wants its share relatively quickly, not a year from now. This puts the on us on the taxpayer to calculate their quarterly payments since an employer isn’t withholding tax from their paycheck. “More and more people are working not only traditional employment but also have a side hustle or are gig workers and don’t even realize that they’re subject to quarterly estimated payments,” she says. “Then they go to file in April like they have every year and come to find out [they] didn’t pay any of these quarterly estimated payments … and for the first time ever, [they’re] going to owe instead of getting money back. That’s a nasty shock.” A tax pro can help schedule those quarterly payments for you.
When it comes to filing your taxes, your accountant will have a much easier time if you keep track of your income and expenses throughout the year. There are plenty of apps like QuickBooks and Mint to help monitor in real time the money going in and coming out, and its purposes. Lauridsen suggests self-employed people take a picture of every receipt for a work-related expense so you have a record of it. (Save these images to a folder on your phone for easy access come tax time.) Come prepared to your tax meeting with tracked income and expenses and any 1099s sent from clients you worked for. Other important information includes retirement account contributions, property taxes, mortgage interest, charitable contributions, educational expenses, and medical bills.
If you haven’t been keeping meticulous records all year, retrace your steps to compile a snapshot of your earnings and expenses. Comb through your bank statements and account for every time you got paid, every business expense, every mile you drove in your car for work (if applicable), and any medical expenses in a spreadsheet.
An ideal relationship with a CPA is ongoing. As your life and finances change, a tax professional can give you an idea of new applicable deductions or credits. “They can say, ‘You’re going to have some serious changes, but you bought a house — that’s a deduction — but you also were freelancing, so you have to make quarterly payments on that, then you started with a W-2,’” Lauridsen says. “They’re able to gauge and give you an assessment of what you should be expecting.”
Anticipate a smaller refund this year
Among the biggest tax conundrums Lauridsen encounters is the confusion between a tax credit and a tax refund. “If you overpaid some taxes, then you get a refund back,” she says. “A credit is something above and beyond the refund. It doesn’t have to do with what you paid in, but it’s a credit given to you.”
Where deductions reduce your amount of income before you calculate how much you owe in taxes, credits reduce the amount of tax you owe or increase your refund amount. There are five types of credits for individuals: family and dependent credits, income and savings credits, homeowner credits, electric vehicle credits, and health care credits. Pandemic expansions to credits such as the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit were not extended for 2022, which means refunds will be smaller this year.
For 2021 taxes, the child tax credit increased from $2,000 per child to $3,000 to $3,600 per child. This year, the credit returns to $2,000 per child. “If you were one of those persons who had the higher amount for the child tax credit last year, your refund could be impacted, assuming everything stays the same,” Lauridsen says.
Divorced couples or unmarried couples who share children cannot both claim the child on their tax return. Generally, the parent who has custody of the child for more than half the year can claim the child, Maag says.
The earned income tax credit, available to workers who earned less than $59,187, was about $1,500 for eligible taxpayers with no children in 2021. It is $500 for 2022. This change may also contribute to a smaller refund or whether you owe.
While tax season can bring myriad rules, forms, credits, and deductions, having a baseline understanding of your tax obligations can help streamline the process and eliminate any shock and disappointment come time to file.
Critics are questioning whether the College Board’s Advancement Placement program lives up to its original vision for “academic freedom.”
The controversy surrounding AP African American studies has reignited a broader debate about the purpose of Advanced Placement courses in high school classrooms — and the role of the College Board as a college gatekeeper.
The AP program is decades old, expansive, and lucrative — bringing in nearly half a billion dollars in revenue for the College Board, the nonprofit that oversees it, in 2020. But challenges to its methods and dominance aren’t limited to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. A wider range of critics with different perspectives are arguing that it’s time to rethink the role AP classes play in American education.
One is Annie Abrams, the author of an upcoming book, Shortchanged: How Advanced Placement Cheats Students. Abrams got interested in the AP program when she started teaching AP English literature to high school students right after earning her doctorate in English literature. During her PhD program, she’d taught actual college literature classes, and “the difference between those experiences was really disturbing to me,” Abrams said.
Her book argues that the program’s emphasis on standardized testing prevents it from offering high school students a real college education. Back then, a stated Advanced Placement ideal was “academic freedom and power” in secondary schools; now, she said, the program only offers “a simulation of freedoms enjoyed by some of the nation’s best institutions.” The standardization embedded in the AP program has bred disempowerment and cynicism.
“AP has long been vulnerable to political pressure,” Abrams said. In 2015, the College Board revised its US government and politics course after receiving backlash from the Republican National Committee and other conservative critics. “I think that DeSantis is challenging the extent to which people find that tolerable.”
I talked to Abrams about the history of Advanced Placement, its original goals, and why she says the College Board is falling short of its objective.
“The attention to AP African American studies should invite lots of attention across the board in every AP subject,” Abrams told Vox. “The questions should be, how are these courses taught and how are they tested — and whether the College Board is the best entity to make decisions about those questions.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Fabiola Cineas
What was your reaction when you first learned that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was rejecting AP African American studies for “lacking educational value”?
Annie Abrams
DeSantis’s comment is distressing because the curriculum represents serious work by scholars and teachers.
Fabiola Cineas
And since then, DeSantis has come out to say that he wants to rethink Advanced Placement in the state altogether.
Annie Abrams
I’m glad that the College Board pushed the issue of including Black voices in secondary school curriculum. But from here, I don’t know that the organization is the best entity to facilitate the conversation and navigate the controversy.
If you believe in the necessity of a nationally normed high school honors curriculum, could we do better by students, teachers, and professors than AP? I think so. And I think the conversation about how to teach [hot-button] issues about which experts disagree should be playing out among educators, not orchestrated by an organization like the College Board, which has shown that it bends to politics.
Fabiola Cineas
Part of your argument is that the College Board has strayed away from Advanced Placement’s original mission. Can you talk a little bit about that history?
Annie Abrams
In the 1950s, Advanced Placement arose out of an endeavor to protect liberal education as education was becoming more specialized and technical. Across institutions — mostly elite institutions, although more public schools were involved than you might expect — the idea was teachers and professors would collaborate on a program of study that would protect democratic habits of mind. The people behind AP had a distinct philosophy of liberal education. They thought that disciplines were more important than a core of material. An important part of the plan was also acceleration — how do we speed up liberal education? That was important, too, because students had to go into professions or go off to war or do whatever they had to do to protect American interests.
There were two major committees studying how to create Advanced Placement whose work led to the College Board’s program. One of them was housed at Andover and the other one at Kenyon. At Andover, there were representatives from six schools — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Lawrenceville, Exeter, and Andover. There were 12 schools and colleges involved with the one housed at Kenyon. And this is how and where the exclusionary nature of Advanced Placement began.
Fabiola Cineas
How was what they were doing exclusionary?
Annie Abrams
When the Andover committee was assembling, there was a high school administrator from a school nearby in Massachusetts who told the newspaper that he thought the Advanced Placement project “sounds great.” I’m paraphrasing. While he said it sounded great, he also remarked that public schools should be involved, too. The Ford Foundation [which initially funded the development of Advanced Placement] addressed this idea early on and basically said, “Let’s do it this way first, and then we’ll expand it later,” instead of being inclusive from the start. The idea was that the brand names of these schools would give the project legitimacy and academic heft.
So the exclusionary nature of the Advanced Placement project is something that the College Board has tried to pivot away from, especially over the past two decades. When people think of the Advanced Placement brand, they think of something that’s exclusionary. The College Board’s promised to expand access to AP. They have, but the substance of the program is different in a lot of cases.
Fabiola Cineas
Can you talk about the expansion of AP?
Annie Abrams
It was always growing incrementally, but there’s this explosion around 2000 under Gaston Caperton, the former president of the College Board. The Clinton administration used federal funding to support the expansion by supplementing the costs of tests for low-income students. I hate to use the word neoliberal, but that’s what we’re talking about. The idea was that if you replicate this private thing, that’ll lift everybody up.
I want to be very clear. The AP brand name is very powerful. It can convince students that they are in fact college material when they wouldn’t have thought of themselves that way otherwise. But I think that’s a big problem, too.
The question with AP is not whether they’ve identified real problems. The College Board does identify problems in American education: articulating the path from high school to college, making sure a broader range of students think of themselves as smart, supporting teachers and giving them a sense of purpose.
That’s all real. The question is whether we could accomplish all those things in other ways.
Fabiola Cineas
The College Board says it is focused on equity as it expands AP. So, for example, with the AP African American studies course, AP senior VP Steve Bumbaugh told me they viewed this as an opportunity to get more marginalized students taking AP classes and going to college. What’s your read on that?
Annie Abrams
The expansion of AP represents a specific definition of equity. It is equity in terms of access to the opportunity to earn college credits. But there are other ways to think of equity. Another way to think of equity is in terms of empowering students with individual agency and giving teachers a lot of autonomy in terms of designing courses.
Fabiola Cineas
When several private schools in the DC area announced in 2018 that they would eliminate AP courses, they got backlash. Some argued it was an elitist response to the expansion of the program. Was that the case?
Annie Abrams
You could view it that way. And you could also see that maybe they’re onto something. Andover, Exeter, Sidwell Friends, Horace Mann — they’ve all dropped AP. Harvard doesn’t acknowledge the credits for graduation. Yale has this complicated AP policy that basically gets at the same thing. If these well-connected schools are saying we don’t need this for the sake of college admissions and we think that other educational philosophies suit our missions better, then maybe public schools should be considering their dependence on this program. I don’t want to say that every school should do exactly like these private schools. I think it’s interesting, though, that this was a step taken at places where they can afford to empower teachers. I think we should be paying attention to that.
And at the same time, Bill de Blasio in New York was saying the city would expand AP for everybody, that all New York City schools are going to offer at least five AP courses. The thing is, it’s clear that that policy benefits the College Board, but whether it benefits students should be a matter of public discussion.
A focus on standardization and testing is one way to try to make meritocracy feasible. If you simplify assignments and rubrics, you can try to make the definition of college success less intimidating, but there’s a lot lost in demanding broad conformity to that vision. So things like creativity and designing curriculum, other forms of collaboration across K-12 and college, true responsiveness to students, that all gets lost.
Fabiola Cineas
What are some other downsides of AP?
Annie Abrams
For one, a lot of students are really stressed out. The level of competition is too intense for a lot of students.
The expansion of AP also undercuts some important civic purposes of public education. When we outsource discussions about curriculum and sense of purpose, it’s a [lost] opportunity for adults to exercise discretion to disagree with each other, to say, like, how can we figure out how to coexist here? What do we agree on? What do we disagree on?
Why shouldn’t universities host these conversations and why shouldn’t universities bolster teachers’ credibility? I think that there are more humane ways to go about those things. So it’s not a matter of lowering academic standards, if that’s what you care about. The rigidity of the AP program, like a timed 40-minute essay, is that the highest academic standard we can aim for? I don’t think so. But in order to encourage better work, we need to go about collaborating across K-12 and college differently. We could be promoting more creativity and more responsiveness to students.
Fabiola Cineas
What do you believe is the solution to Advanced Placement? Are there ways to improve it, or does it need to be completely removed?
Annie Abrams
I think one of the pernicious things is that the College Board doesn’t facilitate the discussion process on as broad a scale as they should. For AP African American studies, I’ve seen a lot of reports about how careful and invested the involved teachers and professors are, and I believe that. And I think that’s the thing to replicate, not the curriculum that they devise. What should be replicated is that collaboration. They should broaden the conversation to involve more people, to empower more teachers to get even more input from professors.
The thing is, you might wind up with courses that are not identical, and the extent to which that’s tolerable to people is an open question. The question is, could multiple versions of this be rigorous? Could it look different ways and still meet all those stipulations? And then the question again is still, is the College Board the right entity to be facilitating this conversation in the first place?
Fabiola Cineas
So what does this all mean for students?
Annie Abrams
Students are not always aware that AP credit won’t always replace college classes. They’re not aware that it doesn’t always factor into college admissions the way they think it will. And what makes a class good or what makes a teacher good doesn’t necessarily correspond with what the College Board provides.
In Florida, for a long time, there’s been a policy on the books that teachers get a $50 bonus for every passing score their students get . So if you have a teacher who’s bent on a bonus at the expense of student mental health or academic enrichment, I don’t know that the program ensures high quality in the way that people think it does.
At the very least, there are multiple paths that we should be considering. How else can we make college credit more affordable? Dual enrollment is another option. International Baccalaureate is another option.
But then another big question is: Why aren’t we investing in public higher education? That’s the elephant in the room.
Fabiola Cineas
Why is the College Board not the right entity to oversee these conversations about curriculum and what students learn?
Annie Abrams
The company has weathered a lot of controversy over the years. I think that we should be talking about Advanced Placement way more, because I think a lot of people are attached to the brand. And they’ve really benefited from the program themselves, like people who have placed out of courses or who have saved on tuition. There is a lot of individual benefit; I’m not saying otherwise.
But the question is whether this is the best means. A standardized course in African American studies, the notion of a company to standardize such a thing — I don’t know how it was ever going to work.
Africa’s largest democracy has voted — what’s at stake for its people, and the continent?
Nigeria’s elections on Saturday could prove to be a deeply consequential contest in Africa’s largest democracy. Eighteen candidates are vying to replace current President Muhammadu Buhari, the nation’s 80-year-old leader who initially came to power in a 1983 coup d’etat.
Buhari is leaving the presidency after two terms, and his successor will inherit a nation struggling with immense inequality, as well as internal security problems and an ongoing cash crisis. Though Nigeria has significant natural resources and has been experiencing a boom in entrepreneurship for the past decade, young professionals are leaving the country in droves for better opportunities in the UK, Europe, the US and Canada, according to CNN. Organized crime, terrorist violence, ethnic and cultural tensions, corruption, nepotism, and state violence are all critical issues for the next leader to address.
Saturday’s elections also include races for the legislative body and state leadership; all of the National Assembly’s 109 Senate seats and 360 seats in the House of Representatives are on the ballot, as are 18 of Nigeria’s 36 governorships. Though the two traditional parties, Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are expected to continue their dominance in the National Assembly, according to a January report from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the same won’t necessarily hold true for the presidency.
Two establishment candidates, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP are frontrunners. They’ve both been in politics for a long time — Abubakar is running in his sixth presidential contest — and are in their seventies. Peter Obi, a businessman and former governor of Anambra State in the South East region, is the Labour Party candidate, who’s worked to mobilize the youth vote and dominate the social media landscape with his followers, the “Obidients.”
Despite his wealth and government experience, Obi does represent a break from entrenched political networks and has a reputation for competence and transparency. “He hasn’t been part of the ‘godfather’ political stereotype that we see with Bola Tinubu or Atiku Abubukar,” Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies told Vox in an interview.
The results of the vote will likely take several days; though the election has reportedly succeeded overall, there have been some violence, delays, and irregularities reported. Whoever wins the 2023 contest, whether via Saturday’s polls or during a later runoff should no candidate win a majority of the vote in this round, he’ll have his work cut out for him preserving Nigeria’s young democracy in the face of democratic backsliding throughout the continent and the multiple problems facing Nigerians.
A successful election in Nigeria “opens the door for democratic self-correction,” Siegle said, allowing for a government responsive to people’s needs and capable of change and flexibility in the face of great change in the nation, on the continent, and in the world. “It’s a big deal,” he said. “It would make a huge statement for Nigeria and for Africa; with Nigeria being Africa’s largest population and largest economy, that’s a big deal.”
Nigeria’s present, overlapping crises have voters driving for change
Nigeria’s stature as Africa’s largest democracy and its largest economy haven’t protected the country from serious economic, security, and political problems.
In February, the central bank recalled old bank notes in 1,000, 500 and 200 naira, making them worthless. The replacement notes haven’t been widely disbursed, creating a cash shortage in a country where millions of people are dependent on cash. That’s in addition to global inflation and a cost of living crisis that has forced doctors and other young professionals to leave the country in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
The government’s explanation for the currency change range from an attempt to cut down on vote-buying, counterfeiting, and cash-hoarding; whatever the reason, those efforts have concluded in frustration, anger, and protest on the part of ordinary Nigerians who can no longer pay their bills. Buhari has brought the old 200-naira notes back into circulation to help ease the crisis, but has otherwise backed up the central bank’s decision.
The nation’s security crisis is also top of mind for Nigerian voters, although what that crisis looks like, exactly, differs from region to region in this large, diverse nation. In the northeast, Islamist terrorist violence continues despite the claim by the Buhari government that Boko Haram has been defeated. Though by some important measures Borno State in the northeast is safer than it was in 2015 when Buhari won the presidency, “there’s still a lot of violence, an incredible amount of disruption, and humanitarian catastrophes” in the country, according to Brandon Kendhammer, associate professor of political science and director of international development studies at Ohio University told Vox.
While groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State Western African Province (ISWAP) “are less militarily able to disrupt lives than they were five or six years ago, that’s the good news,” Kendhammer said. “The bad news is that lots of other kinds of violence have largely taken the place of the violence in northeastern Nigeria. Today, if you’re ranking immediate security concerns in Nigeria, ISWAP and Boko Haram are third or fourth on the list.”
Chris Kwaja, the US Institute for Peace’s interim country manager in Nigeria and a senior lecturer at the Center for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University told Vox that there are a dizzying number of security problems related in part to the inability of the government to incorporate people from a variety of backgrounds and social statuses.
”The emergence of what we call bandits in the north-central and northwestern part of the country, communal conflicts as well as conflicts over access to and management of natural resources, as we see in the context of farmer-herder conflicts in part of the northeast and part of the northwestern part of the country,” are a major driver of insecurity, he said. Farmers and herders often compete over resources limited by encroaching urbanization and climate change, Kendhammer told Vox; though that conflict is layered upon longer-running ethnic and cultural tensions, the proliferation of small arms in the past decade has made the conflict more deadly.
Militant groups in the south competing with the government for access to and distribution of crude oil and separatist groups also create instability. “For many citizens, the state has not been able to effectively contain these drivers and sources of insecurity,” driving disillusionment and apathy toward the existing structures, Kwaja said.
“The expectation is that the country should be able to put itself together in a way that positions it to be able to meet some of the basic expectations of citizens around inclusion, around addressing poverty, around addressing inequality as well as unemployment and other basic functions that democracy should perform,” Kwaja said.
The future of Nigeria’s democracy could hang in the balance
The country’s political system — somewhat sclerotic, with entrenched corruption— also depends on the process of the election and the capacity that the winner has for continuing democratic reforms. The country only became a democracy in 1999, after decades of colonialism and then military rule, and only began to have a viable, competitive multiparty state starting two election cycles ago, Siegle told Vox.
“There are choices here; it will matter who gets elected,” he said. “In a lot of African elections, people don’t have a choice.”
Kwaja and Siegle both pointed to nepotism and corruption as key weaknesses in the Nigerian government structure. “People see access to public office as an opportunity to amass wealth, rather than working for the people,” Kwaja told Vox. And politicians tend to rely on seniority and entitlement, rather than competence and service, as justification for them to hold office. “That sense that there are a certain number of people who, by virtue of the power that they wield, the resources that they have, the political networks that they control, are putatively entitled to [positions of power] really drive a lot of the way that Nigerian politics operate,” Kendhammer said.
Nigeria has made a number of critical election reforms over the years, and that civil society and media have a critical role in demanding change and pushing for transparency, Siegle said. This contest, votes will be tabulated tabulations at polling stations before they’re handed into the federal authority in the capital Abuja, and oversight from authorities like the African Union are both important ways to manage fraud and threats to the electoral system. “Each election gets a little bit better, they learn from the experiences of the last time,”Siegle said.
The election and its outcome are both critical for Nigeria’s democracy, and for Africa overall, Kwaja said. “The international attention that is given to the situation in Nigeria is borne out of this very strong conviction that, if we get it right when it comes to democratic transition in Nigeria, the rest of Africa will also get it right.”