Imperative to Deepening Democratic Culture for Good Governance and Credible Election in the Aftermath of the 2023 General Elections in Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examines the imperative to Deepening Democratic Culture for Good Governance and Credible Election in the aftermath of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. The paper adopted a qualitative method of research to explore the need for deepening democratic culture for credible elections and good governance in our political system. Data were collected from secondary sources such as published text, reports and the internet. The paper adopted the Liberal and Elite theory as its framework of analysis. The paper reveals that the 2023 general elections were not credible due to poor preparedness, institutional deficiency and lack of transparency. This has great implications for democratic sustainability, good governance, norms and acceptability of the democratic system as the best form of government. The paper concludes that there is a need to reinvent the ethical values of democratic principles in our electoral process for future elections. Doing this will help to restore the hope and confidence lost in our electoral process due to the institutional failure of Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct credible elections in the 2023 general elections. This could be achieved through structural reform and concerted efforts of stakeholders, politicians, INEC as a body, political parties, government, and local and international election observers.