CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATION AND THE ELECTORAL PROCESS IN NIGERIA

CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATION AND THE ELECTORAL PROCESS IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

                                   INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background to the study

According to Jega (2007), in the Nigerian context, democracy is something much talked about, greatly aspired and strenuously struggled for. It is a set objective pursued with apparent vigor but not yet attained. It is an aspiration clearly cherished by many but is far from being realized. Democracy has turned out to be a sort of a mirage. Nigerians have been searching for democracy through constitutional reforms and transition programs and they have been continuously disappointed. Election in Nigeria is an important part of any democratic process that enables the citizenry determine fairly and freely who should lead them at every level of government periodically and take decisions that would determine their economic, political and social wellbeing; and in case the elected leaders do not perform, they still possess the power through the ballot to recall them or vote them out in the next election through laid down electoral processes. Obakhedo, (2011) aptly defined election thus: Election is a major instrument for the recruitment of political leadership in democratic societies. The key to participation in a democracy; and the way of giving consent to government (Dye, 2001); and allowing the governed to choose and pass judgment on office holders who theoretically represent the governed Obakhedo, (2011). In its strict sense, there can never be a democracy without election. Huntington is however quick to point out that, a political system is democratic ‘to the extent that its most powerful collective decision-makers are selected through fair, honest and periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes, and in which virtually all the adult population is eligible to vote’ (Huntington, 1991). In its proper sense, election is a process of selecting the officers or representatives of an organization or group by the vote of its qualified members (Nwolise, 2007). Anifowose (2003) defined elections as the process of elite selection by the mass of the population in any given political system, Bamgbose (2012). Elections provide the medium by which the different interest groups within the bourgeois nation state can stake and resolve their claims to power through peaceful means (Iyayi, 2005). Elections therefore determine the rightful way of ensuring that responsible leaders take over the mantle of power.

An election itself is a procedure by which the electorate, or part of it, choose the people who hold public office and exercise some degree of control over the elected officials. It is the process by which the people select and control their representatives. The implication of this is that without election, there can be no representative government. This assertion is, to a large extent, correct as an election is, probably, the most reliable means through which both the government and representatives can be made responsible to