In 2023, Nigeria will have a choice to make. With the exit of incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians will head to the polls in a bid to elect a new president, as well as leaders at different levels of government. But as the country prepares for its 7th general elections, more voters are turning away from the polls.
As previously discussed, numbers over the past few years have shown a constant, and significant decline in the amount of voters that have exercised their civic duty between 1999 to 2019. Despite an increased sensitization on the importance of voting, its seems as though Nigerian voters grow weary each year, with more choosing to sit out the polls, as opposed to active participation.
While INEC in trying to secure approval for more polling units has tied voter apathy to its new cause, there are more issues influencing voters to boycott the polls.
Votes Don’t Count
There is a popular believe in Nigeria that contrary to global opinions, votes don’t really count, money and access does. Over the years, the country has been plagued with a myriad of issues relating to bought elections. Political parties and their candidates have been known to hire thugs to incite election violence through ballot snatching and intimidation; bribe election officers from low level ballot workers to return officers; and also buy votes from vulnerable Nigerians among other things. These issues, alongside a growing trend of controversial judicial rulings on election cases have in many ways influenced the outlook average Nigerians have when it comes to elections. “Why bother to vote, when I know it won’t count in the end?”
The Election Process Is Tedious
In 2020, the United States of America broke an election record. Despite holding a major election in a pandemic, more voters turned out to vote in the controversial polls between then-President Donald Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden. One factor that made this possible in spite of the odds was the expansion and heavy reliance on mail-in voting.
Nigerian elections, pandemic or not, are tedious. From the registration process which has people move from long physical queues to even longer virtual queues as they await their Permanent Voters Card (PVC), to the ever shifting election dates, and finally, the dreaded election day queue. For most voters, the process isn’t worth it. Elections also come with the fear that innocent voters could, in a moment, lose their lives just for being in the right place at the wrong time. For instance, the 2019 Kogi state governorship polls were bloody as two persons were reportedly killed by stray in Lokoja, the Kogi state capital. They were killed when voters tried to stop hoodlums from snatching ballot boxes at the unit. The thugs responded with gunshots.
Regurgitated Candidates Peddling The Same Story
A major point of focus during the 2019 presidential polls was the history of two of its most prominent candidates: President Muhammadu Buhari and former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar. Both candidates had experience at the helm of affairs in Nigeria, and both candidates since stepping away from power, had also taken a stab at the polls different times. Despite an influx of new candidates with fresh ideas and qualifications for the job, the elections seemed to revolve around these two.
Nigerians have become accustomed to recycled leadership. And when it is not a recycled leader, it’s a different leader with a plan that almost usurps that of his predecessor. The political system in Nigeria is exclusionary. Political parties in Nigeria also lack identity. Rather than find its ethos, parties in Nigeria spend a majority of their time trying to pose as a better version of their opposition. Political parties lack discernable ideology, policies and programmes that can galvanize the electorate. Looking at this, it’s easy for the electorate to feel election fatigue as there seems to be nothing new or exciting to inspire them to the polls.
While polling units’ expansion might mitigate this problem, Nigeria’s Electoral Act is in dire need of an update that allows for reforms aimed at making elections in Nigeria transparent, easy and less stressful. Election technology, as well as proper election laws that try and judge perpetrators of election violence, need to be a focus of stakeholders moving forward. INEC must be given an independent status to have free hand in conducting free and fair elections.
This story is part of our new series on Nigeria where we analyse electoral and political reform in the country ahead of the next general elections in 2023.
