The relationship between elections and the vitality of a democratic society is clear. Elections have proven to be the best means of strengthening the mandate of a performing administration or removing a non-performing one. This paper argues, however, that the outcomes of several elections in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic have proved contrary to the common trend […]
Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election has been a landmark in the country’s political history. As the fifth round of elections since the restoration of constitutional rule in 1999, it not only resulted in an alternation of power for the first time in the democratic history of Africa’s largest democracy, but its outcome is widely acknowledged as […]
Since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999 elections in the country have been accompanied by reports of widespread fraud. A number of studies have illustrated the many ways in which electoral fraud is perpetrated in Nigeria. However, there is yet to be a serious study showing the judicial dimension to such fraud. This study […]
This article reviews the security arrangements that undergirded the relative peace and order that characterised the 2011 general elections. It explores the security guarantees for the various phases of the election and argues that the elaborate security arrangements not only ensured relative peace but contributed to the credibility of the elections. It argues, further, that […]
This article explores political participation as one of the most important indicators of the democratic quality of elections and a prime criterion for defining democratic citizenship. It places specific emphasis on voter turnout as the most important form of political participation, but also as an important indicator of the state of health of any democracy, […]
Nigeria’s 2011 elections marked a watershed in the country’s democracy. Before then elections conducted there had been marred by controversy, with monitors and observers who assessed the quality of elections consistently questioning their integrity. The 2011 elections, however, received resounding approval as an improvement. This article examines the monitoring and observation by international and local […]
The electoral topography of the Nigerian postcolonial state reveals that contests for the control of power degenerate more often than not into elite driven violence that undermines the nation-building and democratic projects. In interrogating the legal and constitutional context and the outcome of the 2011 election in Nigeria this paper draws on Foucault’s notion of […]
This paper provides an analysis of the results of the 2011 elections by gender and offers an explanation for the trends noted. It observes that since the 2011 elections there has been a slight fall in the number of women in elected positions. Nigeria is still a long way from meeting the international standard of […]
This article examines issues of women’s involvement in party politics in Nigeria against the background of the 2011 general elections. It explores the influence of patriarchal disposition on women’s participation as well as the extent (or otherwise) to which women are respected and accepted as equal stakeholders in democratic politics and party decision-making organs. It […]
