POLITICAL ECONOMY OF 2015 GENERAL ELECTION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The Nigeria’s 2015 presidential electionmarked a watershed in the political history of the country. However, the scenario of the 2015 election has bothpolitical and economic undertone. It was the first time in Nigeria’s electoral conteststhat incumbency power at the national level failed despite huge investment by the ruling party to maintain the status quo. Before the Election Day, the polity was heatedwithhigh level of political tension emanated the accusation and counter-accusation from the ruling party and the opposition political party. Given this scenario, this paper aims to explore the political economy syndrome of the 2015 general elections. With the aid of secondary data sourced from articles, newspaper, reports, policy statements, the political economy of the 2015 elections is examined. The findings of this paper show that pre, during and after the 2015 election, the polity was heateddue to actions and inactions of political stakeholders. In fact, the dimension of the election showcased the diversity of Nigeriaethnoreligious setting. The division was exploited mainly by the political actors. The contest was a straight political battlebetween President Jonathan, a Christian from Southern Nigeria, against General Buhari, a Muslim from Northern Nigeria. Because of the postponement of the election (earlier scheduled for 14th February 2015), Nigeria was reported to have lost about 2billion dollars because investors lost confidence in the country’s economy. Apparently due to the uncertainty of future of Nigeria investors withheld their investment which had adverse effects on Nigeria stocks (-6.83% and -19.39% WtD and YtD loss). Nigeria GDP growth also reduced by 65percent during the electioneering period.The paper contributes to the political economy of election discourse using 2015 Nigeria’s general election as aunit of analysis.