ELECTION AND THE INSTITUTION OF DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA: THE NIGERIAN DILEMMA

Abstract

The contagious wave of multi-party and plural politics that greeted Africa in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War in the 1990s heightened the quest for democracy and political liberalization. Many nations of Africa found novelty in organizing elections for political succession. As a vehicle for smooth political transition, holding elections on a regular basis is adjudged to be the basic qualification for democratic rule – ‘elections leads to democracy and regularity of elections results to democratisation of the political space’. Nigeria, apart from the aborted transition to democratic rule in 1992, has had uninterrupted democratic transitions through electoral process since 1999. However, after two decades of sustained plural politics through regular multi-party elections, the ideals of democracy and democratic rule are still to be seen in the country. This paper, therefore, seeks to examine why several rounds of elections in Nigeria, like most other nations of Africa, have not succeeded to ensure true democracy and democratisation of the country’s politics. It interrogates the character of the Nigerian ruling regimes, the conduct of elections in Nigeria, and the problem of democracy in post-colonial Nigerian state. The paper concludes that the way elections are organised in Nigeria runs foul to the ideals of democracy; thus, making democratic rule in the country a shadow of itself and a mirage. The argument is not that elections is not and cannot be a normative path to democracy but only contends elections and electoral process in Africa are largely flawed that they do not give room for democracy. What is regarded as democratic rule in many nations of Africa is nothing but ‘elected autocracies’; hence, there is utmost need for a serious reorientation of the African political class as well as mass political mobilisation of the citizenry for democratic governance. The paper is historical and uses qualitative method in its analysis.