DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION AND THE ELECTORAL PROCESS: PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS ON NIGERIA’S 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS

Abstract

One way to look at the evolution of electoral and democratic processes is to focus on a country’s history of electoral, legal and constitutional reforms. In Nigeria, electoral reform had in general sought to address one of the most contentious issues in democratic consolidation: the complex web of political and electoral integrity issues. Although these issues are quite well known in public discourses, it was the Babalakin Commission of Inquiry that brought such issues into sharp relief. The Babalakin Commission Report,1 identified, amongst others, the following as major political and electoral integrity issues:- compilation of fictitious names on voter’s registers; illegal compilation of separate voters’ list; abuse of the voters’ registration vision (claims and objections) exercise; illegal printing of voters’ cards; illegal possession of ballot boxes; stuffing of ballot boxes with ballot papers; falsification of election results; illegal thumb-printing of ballot papers; voting by under-aged children; illegal printing of Forms EC8 and EC8A used for collation and declaration of results; deliberate refusal to supply election materials to certain areas; announcing results in places where no elections were held (or in places where elections were still on-going); unauthorized announcement of election results; harassment of candidates, agents and voters; change of the list of electoral officers and box-switching and inflation of figures. To these we may add issues such as the use of state power to influence electoral outcomes, etc.