Ritual of Electoral Democracy, Growing Political Awareness and the Paradox of Contagious Scepticism

Abstract

As one of the pillars of democracy, election has an inescapably ritual dimension that periodically attracts political actors and thus, it has become a barometer to measure political behaviour across regions of the world. Nigeria has, after two decades of uninterrupted civilian dispensation, keyed into this global phenomenon. Although democracy has been the world’s predominant form of government in the last five decades and there has been broad global progress on many aspects of this type of government, conducting credible and transparent elections still remains a herculean task in many African countries. For instance, Nigeria’s troubled elections continually reflect the country’s lingering “do or die” politics, poor electoral management and institutionalised impunity, defying attempts at entrenching democratic norms. Consequently, there is a seeming shift from voter apathy to outright voter boycott in the country- the 2019 election recording the lowest turnout (35 per cent) since 1999. This decline has been difficult to explain in the context of an electorate’s seemingly better pre-election activism and political engagements. Hence, why large numbers of citizens continually refuse to participate in this most basic civic exercise should naturally provoke agitation. Employing secondary sources of data collection, this paper establishes the relationship between voter turnout and disenchantment and other underpinning variables associated with the Nigeria’s electoral democracy. It foregrounds how low voter turnout remains a stubborn challenge to Nigerian democracy and the imperativeness for post-election audit.