Abstract
In the 2011 general elections in Nigeria, the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), the electoral management body (EMB) that organized the elections pulled what may pass as an electoral feat in achieving one of the most open, credible, peaceful and transparent elections within Nigeria’s recent memory. Before the 2011 elections, Nigeria had the 1999, 2003 and the 2007 elections considered by both national and international election observers, the Common Wealth Election Monitoring groups and the civil society, to be the most disorganized and fraudulent election during which people’s votes were blatantly stolen, rigged and the mandate of the people hijacked by political elites belonging variously to different political parties. Nigeria’s democracy, no doubt, is still nascent, evolving and could be classified as a new democracy. This paper takes a critical look at a disturbing national and international question: why is there so much electoral fraud in new and emerging democracies like Nigeria. The article seeks to establish the reasons and causes of electoral manipulation, its dynamics and corrupt tendencies, especially those electoral outcomes that are disputed as a result of electoral misconduct known as “electoral fraud”. The article will evaluate the concept of electoral fraud, explore the challenges of electoral fraud, its consequent crisis for new democracies and suggests ways of curtailing the phenomenon in its varied manifestations.
Highlights
An electoral fraud is seen as an illegal interference with the process of election that interferes with the mandate of the people
Since this study focuses on electoral fraud in Nigeria, as a fundamental cause and framework under which electoral violence is unleashed that threatens the political order and peace in Nigeria, it will be a vital and relevant good step to give a summary background of recent Nigeria’s relevant political and democratic history
As agreed to by several scholars such as Patrick Iroegbu: 2003: 17, since 1960 when the country attained political independence from Brittan electoral fraud at a time became a disease ravaging Nigerian people and undermining their development planning, leading to a psychological phenomenon known as electoral fraud anger syndrome that disposes the cheated masses to violence: Beyond any reasonable shade of doubt, there is a political illness that sweeps across Nigeria at any given election time since independence
Summary
An electoral fraud is seen as an illegal interference with the process of election that interferes with the mandate of the people. In Nigeria’s chequered political and democratic history, special dimensions were assumed by the country’s electoral fraud experience to include: 4) Under age voting; 5) Mass voting by unregistered citizens (neither qualified to register nor even registered to vote); 6) Snatching of ballot boxes to be stuffed with thumbprinted votes for party candidates; 7) Switching of results before or after collation to favor ruling party candidates; 8) Intimidation at the polls using private militant gangs or even state security; 9) Scaring away of genuine registered voters from exercising their votes in polling booths located in an opposition favored constituency; 10) Deliberate, one-sided and improper counting of votes; 11) Media manipulation to announce or publish the wrong results and the wrong candidates as winners before the proper collation of results by the Electoral Commission. Since this study focuses on electoral fraud in Nigeria, as a fundamental cause and framework under which electoral violence is unleashed that threatens the political order and peace in Nigeria, it will be a vital and relevant good step to give a summary background of recent Nigeria’s relevant political and democratic history
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
