Elections and Democratic Consolidation: A Study of 2019 General Elections in Nigeria

Abstract

The main thrust of this paper is to examined elections and democratic consolidation in Nigeria with reference to the 2019 General elections. Elections are central to the existence, stability and development of democracies; and political parties play significant role in such democracies. The viability and preference of democracy as a form of government above others is predicated on the unique prominence, relevance and opportunity it affords for popular participation. It is against this backdrop that this work examines the successes and challenges recorded in the 2019 General elections in Nigeria with a view to providing a better alternative for an improved election in the future. This study adopted the Elite theory by Gaetano Moscoa, Vilfredo Pareto and Robert Michels as its framework of analysis. The data used for this study were collected through the secondary sources which were obtained from the review of related literature. Despite the appreciation that only credible election can consolidate and sustain Nigeria’s nascent democracy, election often result to confrontations that continue to threaten the political stability, peace and the very existence of the nation. The major findings of the research are: that the 2019 general elections were to a large extent fraudulent as they did not largely reflected voters choice due to inflation of election result figures, multiple voting, falsification of election results, delay in commencement of voting, result manipulation and wholesale subversion of the will of people which were largely perpetrated by the incumbents. The study also found out that the 2019 general elections have lower democratic quality and higher credibility deficit as compared to 2015 general elections. Most voters were induced with money by politicians both those in power and those seeking to be in power to influence voter’s choice of candidate or political party in order to retain or capture political power. The research recommends that the areas that recorded significant improvement should be maintained while in the areas where there were of challenges should be looked into against future elections.