Electoral Security and Its Implications for Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria

Abstract

The phenomenon of electoral violence has remained one of the defining characteristics of Nigeria's democratic process. The problem has continued to intensify with its corrosive effect on the democratisation process in the 4th Republic. This is expressed in the increasing manifestation of physical, psychological and structural violence perpetrated against political opponents, the citizenry and the system.  Invariably, this has constituted a sense of insecurity, electoral apathy and legitimacy crisis in the polity. Despite the devastating consequences of protracted electoral violence in Nigeria, systematic academic research is rather scanty on the imperative of electoral security on the sustenance of democratic culture in the country.  Using secondary sources of data collection, this study, therefore, seeks to explore the nexus between electoral security and democratic consolidation in Nigeria. Findings reveal that the threat to electoral security is a product of a complex set of interactive factors characterising various stages of the election process. Hence, the overwhelming coercive approach to electoral security which is informed by the assumption that the principal threat to electoral security emanates from undesirable activities on the Election Day is quite misleading and grossly insufficient to address electoral insecurity. Therefore, the study recommends democracy-friendly measures that spans across the three stages of the electoral process for electoral security management with a view to securing an enabling environment for ‘good politics' and participatory democracy in the country's 4th Republic.