The Conduct Of Elections And Electoral Practices In Nigeria
1 Introduction
“Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.”
To a very large extent, elections and electoral practices shape the fate of the modern nation state. The reason for this is not difficult to establish. Elections provide the medium, by which the different interest groups within the modern nation state can stake and resolve their claims to power through peaceful means. Elections therefore determine the manner and methods by which changes in the social order may be brought about. Where this method fails, individuals and groups may be left to their own means – including assassinations, coup detats, revolutions, insurgency and bush wars – to press their claim to power. It is this fact more than any thing else that makes the subject of elections and electoral practices in Nigeria so crucial today. As we are aware, the controversial elections of 1965 produced the coup detat of January 1966. Again the flawed elections of 1983 produced the military coup of December 31, 1983. Finally, Babangida’s flawed elections of 1993 produced the Abacha palace coup of that year and paved the way to his memorable dictatorship. As we look now towards 2007 against the background of the failed elections of 2003 and 2004 the question naturally arises as to whether our country can arrive there in one piece or survive it in whatever form thereafter. In order to answer this question or suggest ways in which it can be answered so that we can arrive there, as one country with a renewed faith in the democratic process, there is a need to examine the nature of elections and its place in furthering democracy and development in a bourgeois social order such as ours.
2. Elections, Bourgeois Democracy and Development
Almost everywhere, the enlightened self-interest of the ruling class dictated that autocracy be replaced first by the classical form of democracy and that next, the classical form itself be replaced by its liberal form within the
“Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.”
To a very large extent, elections and electoral practices shape the fate of the modern nation state. The reason for this is not difficult to establish. Elections provide the medium, by which the different interest groups within the modern nation state can stake and resolve their claims to power through peaceful means. Elections therefore determine the manner and methods by which changes in the social order may be brought about. Where this method fails, individuals and groups may be left to their own means – including assassinations, coup detats, revolutions, insurgency and bush wars – to press their claim to power. It is this fact more than any thing else that makes the subject of elections and electoral practices in Nigeria so crucial today. As we are aware, the controversial elections of 1965 produced the coup detat of January 1966. Again the flawed elections of 1983 produced the military coup of December 31, 1983. Finally, Babangida’s flawed elections of 1993 produced the Abacha palace coup of that year and paved the way to his memorable dictatorship. As we look now towards 2007 against the background of the failed elections of 2003 and 2004 the question naturally arises as to whether our country can arrive there in one piece or survive it in whatever form thereafter. In order to answer this question or suggest ways in which it can be answered so that we can arrive there, as one country with a renewed faith in the democratic process, there is a need to examine the nature of elections and its place in furthering democracy and development in a bourgeois social order such as ours.
2. Elections, Bourgeois Democracy and Development
Almost everywhere, the enlightened self-interest of the ruling class dictated that autocracy be replaced first by the classical form of democracy and that next, the classical form itself be replaced by its liberal form within the
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