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| Elections without Voters: Issues and Challenges of Voter Apathy in Nigeria
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Nwoba, Hyacinth. A Ph.D , Nwobodo, F.N, Nnamani, Desmond.O Ph.D , Ezedibia, Chukwuka
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Abstract:
Voter apathy is a worrisome dimension, worldwide. Nigeria has been experiencing a decline in voter turnout since the beginning of the fourth Republic in 1999. Ordinarily, voter apathy signifies low trend in democratic participation attract the interest of primary stakeholders and scholars in electoral enterprise, is given attention. This is because Nigeria polity is driven by end-means calculus thus; these political gladiators are predisposed to win at the expense of high voter participation to express the richness of democratic process. Apart from few democracies, with law on compulsory voting, Nigeria voters are apathetic to exercise their franchise but the reasons has multi-factorial technically, operationally and administratively by election management body EMB with mistrust and distrust in political process filled with economic hardship, corruption and violence. Generally, elections in Africa have notoriety for voter participation is expressed through casting of votes. Moreover, there is no benchmark on voters turn out to accept election, since political parties and their candidates are less concern with numerical strength of vote cast as they are with registered number of votes scored. Specifically, the paper attempts to identify issues associated with voter apathy through an insightful theoretical exposition, identify factors responsible for voter apathy in Nigeria and proffer measures adopted by stakeholders to stem the tide of voter apathy in Nigeria. The study adopted game theory and rational choice theory as the explanatory tool for voter apathy in Nigeria with documentary research design. The findings of the study reveals that weak institutions weak electoral jurisprudence nature of the party system, militarization of electoral violence, winner takes all syndrome, poor legal framework on votes turn-out, poor governance system and electoral technology are factors that engender voter apathy. The paper recommends that political institutions should be accountable, transparent and people-oriented to feel the pulse of voters. The electoral body should adopt more friendly-technology to reduce techno-phobia and engender seamless electoral processes. Electoral framework should be designed on voters turn-out sufficient for the declaration of election result. The influence of state power, militarization and violence of the electoral process should be minimized.
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