Nigeria’s Electoral Antecedents
All the beautiful attributes of what the electoral process should mean for a democratic society cannot be associated with Nigeria. Nigerian electoral history has not been a pleasant one. Nigerians have participated in many elections, beginning with the colonial era when the concept of elections was first introduced. The electorate has also grown from about 5,000 adults with 100 pounds sterling income per annum as qualification to be eligible to vote, to over 70 million voters of 18 years of age and above. Elective posts have also increased tremendously and electoral referees have also changed from being members of the colonial service whose electoral duties were part time assignments to being members of an independent electoral commission on full time employment. Yet, since its attainment of independence in 1960, Nigeria has been bedeviled by political instability fueled largely by an electoral process in crisis. The country and her leaders have refused to learn from history and avoid the pitfalls of past mistakes in order to pave the pathway for a secure political future. Rather, they have continued to perpetuate the worst forms of our political processes characterized by ugly incidents of political thuggery and violence, electoral malpractices both at political party level and general elections, unending law suits, crisis of legitimacy, instability and chaos.
Over the period of Nigeria’s existence as an independent nation-state, all these negative attributes of her political processes have often provided compelling reasons for military adventurists to seize power from its civilian collaborators. Without any fear of contradiction, the problems associated with the first post independence national election of 1964 and the 1965 Western Region election culminated in the January 15, 1966 coup. The former was characterized by wide spread rigging, intimidation and chaos that some of the major political parties decided to boycott the election, creating in its aftermath serious constitutional dilemma. The latter election of the Western Region was also marred by the problem of massive rigging and other irregularities plus wide spread violence, giving the impetus for the first military coup in Nigeria and the culture of instability that was to beset the country for over three decades.
Other elections that have taken place in Nigeria after the 1964 and 1965 elections have not fared better. The 1979 elections that saw the emergence of Mallam Shehu Shagari as Civilian president was criticized by international observers as having been massively rigged. The 1983 election, four years later was even worse, marred by corruption, political violence and polling irregularities; it provided another set of military adventurers the impetus to seize power on December 31, 1983, citing electoral malpractices as one of its reasons for overthrowing the civilian government. The 1999, 2003 and 2007 elections, three elections conducted during this period of ten years of Nigeria’s democracy have been lampooned by many critics as far from free and fair. Infact, the last general election of April 2007, conducted by the existing current electoral body, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been described as the worst election ever held in this country as a result of indescribable irregularities which marred the elections.
Perhaps the freest and fairest election in the history of Nigeria was the June 12, 1993 election that was annulled by General Ibrahim Babangida, erstwhile self styled military President of Nigeria. Unfortunately, the country was deprived of the opportunity of taking advantage of this successful achievement to launch itself on the road to true democracy by a greedy and rabid political and military class interested in perpetuating itself in power. The vital lesson though from this experience, is that a sound electoral process is dependent on having a solid democratic infrastructure in place and vice versa.
I have provided this brief historical background to demonstrate the urgency required to undertake extensive and true socio – political reforms in Nigeria to ensure the “sustenance of true democratic principles rooted in the rule of law and justice for all”.
