Methods of election
First-past-the-post (FPTP) divides a country into constituencies, and in each one, the candidate with the most votes wins the seat -- even if they don't win an outright majority. Proportional representation (PR) allocates seats to parties roughly in proportion to their overall share of the vote, so a party winning 30% of the national vote gets roughly 30% of the seats.
Example 1: In a constituency, Candidate A gets 40% of the vote, Candidate B gets 35%, and Candidate C gets 25%. Under first-past-the-post, who wins the seat?
Candidate A wins -- FPTP awards the seat to whoever gets the most votes, regardless of whether that's an outright majority (more than 50%). Candidate A's 40% is the largest share here, even though 60% of voters chose someone else.
Universal adult suffrage
Universal adult suffrage means every adult citizen (typically 18 years and above) has the right to vote, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, or wealth -- a principle most modern democracies, including Nigeria, are constitutionally committed to, though it took long historical struggles in many countries to achieve.
The electoral process
A typical election process includes voter registration (compiling the electorate), campaigning (candidates and parties present their case to voters), the actual voting, and collation (counting and combining results from different polling units into a final result). Independent electoral bodies (like Nigeria's INEC) are usually responsible for organizing and overseeing this process to ensure it's conducted fairly.