DEMOCRACY AND ELECTORAL FRAUD IN NIGERIA

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DEMOCRACY AND ELECTORAL FRAUD IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study
Fourth Republic has elevated corruption, impunity and meddlesomeness
to political creeds that have robbed governance the much needed
responsive and caring human face. This is double jeopardy: bad
politics and poor economic

management characterised by collapsing institutions, disoriented
political elites and a abused, violated, disillusioned and
disenfranchised populace, has led to governance that has failed to
deliver the much promised and political

dividends of democracy (The Nation 2009: 15).

The project, therefore, in its attempt to explain this ugly phenomenon
of failed, uncaring and unresponsive governance, will link it up to
the perennial problem of the nation’s inability and even unwillingness
on the part of the political

class to put in place a credible, lawful and democratic electoral
process. Thus, the main objective of this research endeavour is to
establish a nexus between poor governance and inability and
unwillingness of the managers of the Nigerian polity to evolve a
democratic electoral regime. The crux of the argument is that

the failure of governance to meet fundamental needs and aspirations of
majority of Nigerians is largely a product of the crisis of electoral
administration

in Nigeria. Basically, these two issues have come to dominate the discourse on

the travails of democracy in contemporary Nigeria.

Election is the most foundational element of modern day representative
democracy. In fact, according to Alapiki (2004: 130), election is:

…the barometer to measure the political maturity, health, legitimacy
and stability of a democratic governance. It is generally held to be
the single most important indicator of the presence or absence of
democratic governance.

Thus, how a state arranges and conducts its elections tells a lot
about the level of political development of that particular state
(Paki and Inokoba 2006: 181). What is an election? In its most
inclusive form, election is defined as: a form of procedure,
recognised by the rulesof an organisation, whereby all or some of the

members of the organisation choose a smaller member of persons or one
person to hold office or authority in the organisation (International
Encyclopaedia of Social Science 1972: 1). In a rather restricted
sense, Okolie (2005:

436) defines election as, “the process of selecting the officers or
representatives of an organization or group by vote of its qualified
members”. And as a political phenomenon, elections are
institutionalised procedures for choosing

political office holders by the electorate of a country. In other
words, it is a means through which the electorate choose their
representatives into the different organs (positions) of the
government (Paki and Inokoba 2006: 181).

However, a more encompassing definition wasposited by Bain (1964:
162). He conceives election as: …the formal process by which the
electorateselects officials and determines the issuessubmitted to it.
It is therefore a procedure forchoosing officials or making binding
decisionsconcerning policy by the vote of those formallyqualified to
participate.

The above position is also in line with the definition offered by the
Encyclopaedia Americana (Vol. 10, 1996), which conceives election as
“a procedure for choosing concerning policy by the vote of those
formally qualified to participate”.

In a nutshell, from the foregoing, election is a formal procedure
recognised by law as well as a decision taken by the electorate to
decide those who occupy public offices and as well as policy direction
of a policy. It is in line with this position that conceived election
as a social contract between the people and their governors. As such
he sees it as “the process by which a person is linked to an office
with due provision for the participation of the people meant to come
under the officer’s authority”. This perception of election as a
framework for forming a government based on popular consent is what
makes the product of transparent and credible elections, a
responsible, responsive and accountable government.

1.2 Statement of the problem

Conducting free and fair election has been a weighty albatross in
Nigeria’s repeated attempts

at sustained democratic governance is a fact widely acknowledged.
According to the International

Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) that the
electoral process in the country faces many administrative,
attitudinal and political problems that have consistently challenge
meaningful, open and democratic elections in Nigeria (Nwanuforo 2009).

From the fallout of previous electoral exercises, elections in Nigeria
are either undemocratically

guided or organised to fail or the process and the project privatised
by sections of

the political class. Since the colonial period, Nigeria has organised
about 19 elections. Apart from the

inconclusive June 12 elections of 1993, theyNwere all congenitally
marred by electoral fraud .

These elections were characterised by serious and blatant cases of
electoral fraud such as

stuffing of ballot boxes, over bloated voting registers, special
treatment of voters and election

officials, disappearance or destruction of ballot boxes, distortion of
results, grand standing

of political sponsors (or god-fathers), intimidation of voters and
political opponents by law

enforcement agents and thugs as well as election related violence,
arson and killings.

And examining the electoral history of Nigeria, there is a general
consensus that the

integrity of election has been on the decline since 1959 with the 2007
general elections

widely assessed by both local and international observers as the worse
in the country’s history.

Commenting on this, DrChukwuemekaEzeife, former governor of Anambra
State opined that:

…democracy is associated with elections.

How have the elections gone since 1999 till date? The 1999 elections
were disputed but it

was vastly better than the 2003 elections. People shouted foul about
the 2003 election

but that was infinitely better than the nonelection of 2007. Each
election has been worse,

more flawed than the one before it. We cannot be getting a democracy
by running further away

from it (cited by Adeyemo 2009: 22).

The United States based Human Rights Watch also agrees with the above
view by stating

in its world survey that the greatest form of human rights abuse going
on in Nigeria is that

Nigerian have been denied the right to choose their leaders through a
free-and-fair election.

Rather most of the so-called political leaders are selected and
imposed on the people; from the local government to the national
level, by Political god-fathers with the consequence that

those in power are not considered true representatives of their people
(Agbo 2009: 54).

The 2007 general election was designed from the onset to be flawed. In
fact, it was built on

corruption, pervasion, exclusionary politics, blackmail, intimidation
and coercion. Indeed,

several months before the April 14 polls, former President
OlusegunObasanjo had declared that

winning the elections was a do-or-die affair. And it turned out to be so.

1.3 Objectives of the study

1. To understand the history of electoral process in Nigeria

2. To understand the relevance of electoral process in democratic consolidation

3. To know the impact of electoral fraud on democratic consolidation

1.4 Research Questions

1. What is the history of electoral process in Nigeria?

2. What is the relevance of electoral process in democratic consolidation

3. What is the impact of electoral fraud on democratic consolidation

1.5 Research Hypothesis

H0: There is no relevance of electoral process in democratic consolidation

H1: Electoral process is relevant in democratic consolidation

H0: There is a significant impact of electoral fraud on democratic consolidation

H1: There is no significant impact of electoral fraud on democratic
consolidation

1.6 Limitations of the study

There was limited time and finance during the course of the research