Honorary Chairman of the Democrat Union of Africa, Peter Mac Manu, says Nigeria’s large population and economic strength makes its ongoing general election one of concern for the West African sub-region.

Nigeria has the largest population and the largest economy on the African continent.

According to Mac Manu, this makes the country’s “activities at all levels have multiplied effects on countries within the ECOWAS and Africa as a whole.”

His comments follow the just ended Nigerian general election held on February 25 to elect the President and Vice President and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

This election was seen as the tightest race since the end of military rule in 1999.

While voting has been long over, results are being collated from all across the country amidst allegations of vote rigging and fraud.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Peter Mac Manu said that Nigeria has to get it right in order to avoid any negative ripple effect across the ECOWAS region.

“Certainly, Nigeria has to get this right, because as the most populous country in Africa and the ECOWAS region, the economic giant, their activities at all levels have multiplied effects on countries within the ECOWAS and Africa as a whole. So I keep saying that, anything that happens to Nigeria has or will have cascading effects on ECOWAS countries,” he said.

He added that, “And the success of Nigeria is also good for the ECOWAS because they can pull us along just as Japan did for the South East Asia nations. So everybody in the sub-region must be very concerned about the elections in Nigeria, and an election with voter population of 93million is no joke.”

Currently, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress (APC) is leading the polls, followed closely by Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.