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The ousting of Dr Goodluck Jonathan marked the first time in Nigerian history that a member of the opposition unseated an incumbent in fair and peaceful elections. The smooth transition of power, uncharacteristic of Nigeria, was hailed by the international community as a victory. However, did Muhammadu Buhari win because Jonathan lost or did Jonath...
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Context 1
... concurs with the finding of a study conducted by two Nigerian researchers, Nkwachukwu Orji and Nkiru Uzodi, who observe that transitional elections are generally more peaceful than consolidation elections. 70 Table 2 shows that multiparty elections have become regularised and the sole mode of power transition since the adoption of the 1999 constitution, showing evidence of liberal democracy. However, while elections have become more frequent, their quality has declined. ...
Context 2
... is a visible increase in violence and allegations of electoral malpractice. It is also evident from Table 2 that elections that were held to confirm an incumbent, as in 2003 and 2011, have generally been more violent and more deadly. Indeed, some analysts have estimated the death toll of the 2003 elections to be as high as 10 000. ...
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Citations
... According to lessons learned from previous presidential elections in Nigeria, the pre-election period was the most violent time of election campaigns. Electoral terrorism typically occurred in the period before, during and immediately after elections [28]. During the pre-election period in 2015, for example, terrible attacks took place. ...
This study examined political apathy and 2023 general elections in Nigeria using Enugu state as a case study.The study raised two specific questions which were: What are the various factors responsible for political apathy in the 2023 general election in Enugu state? How has government interference contributed to political apathy during the 2023 general elections in Enugu State? The study was anchored on the class analysis theory. Using ex-post facto design the study adopted thematic content analysis to examine political apathy and 2023 general elections in Enugu. The study therefore, concluded that there are various factors responsible for political apathy in the 2023 general election in Enugu state and government interference contributed to political apathy during the 2023 general elections in Enugu State. The researcher recommended that state governments should ensure to leave up to the promises of good governance made to the people. All factors that lead to political apathy must be checkmated. Enforceable legislations against election rigging, violence, thuggery, godfatherism and the like should be put into practice. Good governance will ensure, justice, fairness, equity and inclusion for all. All federal government agencies charged with voter education like National Orientation Agency (NOA), INEC, and Ministry of Information should sustain political education at all levels of the society. Political apathy is not the solution to electoral problems rather it endangers the electoral system more. Popular participation in elections will help reduce the influence of godfathers during elections thus creating room for the emergence of credible leaders through a credible election process. Keywords: Apathy; Political Apathy, Elections; Electoral Fraud and Violence
... According to lessons learned from previous presidential elections in Nigeria, the pre-election period is the most violent time of election campaigns. Electoral terrorism typically occurs before, during, and immediately after elections (Ewi, 2015). This corresponded largely with central ups to the previous two election years, with over 150 reported deaths between 2018 and 2019 and an estimated 115 events and over 90 deaths between 2014 and 2015 (Kohnert, 2023). ...
To mitigate electoral challenges in Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deploys Smart Card Readers (SRC) to conduct the 2015, 2019 elections. However, the SCR had challenges, such as the inability to authenticate voter cards and verify biometric data. Hence, INEC introduced Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in 2023. Relying on data generated using the macro qualitative and eclectic approach (Technological Acceptance Model and Innovation Diffusion Theory), the paper assesses the acceptance, challenges of BVAS and the relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trial-ability and the observability of BVAS during the 2023 presidential elections. The findings reveal that INEC's failure to upload the election results on the Result Viewing (IREV) portal in real-time was a significant setback, leading to doubt about the credibility of the elections. This failure was not only a breach of the 2022 Electoral Act but also of INEC's guidelines. Therefore, the paper recommends an effective way of administering elections in Nigeria using technology-based devices
... For President Jonathan and his party the PDP, convincing Nigerians during the campaign that he was the man to be trusted with the nation's security became a herculean task (Abdullahi, 2018). As analysts like Adeniyi (2017) and Ewi (2015) argue, Buhari's victory in 2015 was handed to him by Jonathan's unpopularity occasioned by the nation's insecurity challenges and the way Jonathan's administration responded to it. Ayanda and Udunayo (2015) also suggest that the national security situation affected voter turnout with less than 30 million of the registered 67 million voters electing the president. ...
Since Barack Obama’s campaign of 2008 and 2012, contemporary discourse and analysis of modern political communication have been variously and increasingly preoccupied with the analysis of the power of new technology-digital media platforms and algorithms as both the main ingredients and infrastructure for modern campaigns and electioneering. However, as important as these mediated tools and platforms have become, we argue that focus on context, ideas, issues, and campaign rhetoric is equally essential in making sense of factors that contribute in shaping and destabilizing elections and democracy. Drawing from an extensive review of campaign related literature in three countries and a constant comparative method of reading the literature, we illustrate such contextual issues, ideas and campaign rhetoric using examples from America, Britain and Nigeria. In all three examples, the literature reviewed highlight that context – i.e. socio-economic, cultural and political all compete to incentivizes and stimulate the formation of ideas and issues that dominate campaign and election cycles.
... As already seen, the Nigerian state structure and the interplay of different factors (economic greed and grievances, ethnic and religious tensions, political opportunity and unsuccessful state response to insurgency) account for the failure to counter the threat from Boko Haram. Consequently, while some observers (Ewi 2015) feared the 2015 elections were vulnerable to terrorism, President Jonathan thought of electorally exploiting a military victory against the group: in fact, he appeared to be convinced that a military success over Boko Haram would increase his chances for re-election. 2 ...
This article analyses the 2015 intervention of Specialized Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection (STTEP International Ltd), a South African private military company (PMC), against Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group in Nigeria. The origins of PMCs are highlighted before an in-depth analysis of the mercenary intervention against Boko Haram is performed, with an eye on previous major PMC interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. On the one hand, the paper emphasises the unprecedented use of PMCs against Islamic extremist groups but on the other reveals that PMC interventions have not changed much. Finally, the article assesses STTEP’s intervention in light of the current debate on private security involving those who advocate its use and regulation and those who question the legitimacy of PMCs as a tool of conflict resolution.
... As a president, privileging your ethnic nationality and side-lining other groups has impacts in Nigerian electoral politics as this can lead to protest votes, especially in the 2019 presidential election. During the 2015 electioneering, President Buhari and his party, All Progressive Congress campaigned to curb insecurity problems, especially the Boko Haram insurgency in the country (Ewi, 2015). While the Boko Haram insurgency has lessened to some extent, the farmers-herders conflict has escalated (Mwanza, 2018). ...
The conflict between farming communities and herders in Nigeria has increased in the last four years. It has become a subject of discourse in various domains, including the media and body politic. The intensification of the crisis has spurred renewed scholarly attention to the other ways the conflict could be understood. The increased role of media in the crisis has been identified, but existing studies on the role of the media focus on media reportage, framing and coverage. There is relatively scare research on the politics of media discourse of the conflict, which can reveal representations of subjects and identities, subject-positions, subjectivity and power relations in the narrative of the conflict. Thus, this research analyses the politics of newspapers’ discourse of the conflict in Nigeria. The representations of the conflict cluster around five albeit overlapping themes, namely causes, victims, consequences, government’s responses and resolution strategies to the conflict. The discourse of the dispute is constructed as a security issue which embodies other forms of security viz national security, food security, the security of statehood and unity of the nations that make up the Nigerian state. The article shows that the construction of the conflict draws on the political and ideological dispositions of the papers. It argues that the link between the newspapers’ representation of the conflict and the strategies they proposed for curbing the dispute is weak. Thus, while media representations of the conflict can reveal the various contestations in the framing of the conflict in Nigeria, it might be insufficient to establish the link between discourse, identity and policy. Further, it argues that developing a sustainable strategy for the resolution of the crisis requires among other things, a national dialogue.
... Thus, these narratives and conditions further raised the stakes because voters were making an informed choice as to whether to accept or continue with the status quo or to change the discourse. Consequently, many experts such as (BBC News, 2015;Akinola, 2015;Marc and Mackian, 1995;Ewi, 2015) held the opinion that the 2015 General elections in Nigeria would be regarded as one of the most dangerous periods in the political history of the country. This is because the increasing agitations, heightened tensions, contentious and divisive politics, the increasing level of insecurity occasioned by the continued attacks by the Boko Haram Insurgents, the state of the economy, and the lack of decisive leadership amongst other contending discourses which further heightened the political temperature ultimately lead to the predictions that if the 2015 General elections were not handled effectively, Nigeria would disintegrate by the year 2015. ...
... This is because the increasing agitations, heightened tensions, contentious and divisive politics, the increasing level of insecurity occasioned by the continued attacks by the Boko Haram Insurgents, the state of the economy, and the lack of decisive leadership amongst other contending discourses which further heightened the political temperature ultimately lead to the predictions that if the 2015 General elections were not handled effectively, Nigeria would disintegrate by the year 2015. As further observed by Ewi (2015), Lewis and Kew (2015), even though Nigeria was able to navigate the turbulence, one cannot ignore the fact that the stakes in the 2015 elections were high. Therefore, the following represent some of the key factors and indicators that led to the increased and heightened stakes the marked the 2015 Presidential elections in Nigeria. ...
This article offers a contextual discourse on the nature of political stakes and the changing dynamics of elections in Nigeria by comparing the 2015 and 2019 Presidential elections as its main focus of analysis. Using qualitative technique which involves the use of secondary sources and personal interviews with certain key actors and experts in the political narrative of Nigeria, the article is able to predict that elections and voting patterns are driven by certain agendas and discourses that are not only used by the political actors but by the media and all its communication tools to further project, set and define the key topical issues in the electoral process. These discourses and agenda-setting ultimately influence the pattern and further raise the stakes in the elections given that voters are already stuck with these issues, which ultimately informed their choice of candidate. Thus, within the Nigerian context, these discourses are used to heavily influence voters" choices and to define the direction of the voting, as evidenced in both the 2015 and 2019 Presidential elections in the country.
Öz: Bu makale, 2015 ve 2019 başkanlık seçimlerini, analizinin ana odağı ve Nijerya'daki seçimlerin değişen dinamiğinin doğasına ilişkin bağlamsal anlatı olarak karşılaştırmadaki politik rekabeti/çekişmeleri betimlenmektedir. Nijerya'nın politik anlatısında bazı önemli aktörler ve uzmanlarla ikincil kaynakların ve kişisel görüşmelerin kullanılmasını içeren nitel bir araştırma tekniği kullanmaktadır. Makale, seçim ve oylama kalıplarının, yalnızca siyasi aktörler tarafından değil, medya ve tüm iletişim araçları tarafından, seçim sürecindeki kilit güncel konuları daha da projelendirmek, belirlemek ve tanımlamak için kullanılan bazı gündem ve söylemler tarafından yönlendirildiğini tahmin edebilmektedir. Bu söylemler ve gündem belirleme sonuçta modeli etkilemekte ve seçmenlerin, adaylara seçtiklerini bildiren bu konularla zaten sıkışmış olmaları nedeniyle seçimlerde payları daha da arttırmaktadır. Bu anlatılar ve söylemler, ülkedeki 2015 ve 2019 Başkanlık seçimlerinde kanıtlandığı gibi, seçmenlerin seçimlerini yoğun bir şekilde etkilemek ve oylamanın yönünü tanımlamak için kullanılmaktadır.
... The 2011 General Election was considered a slight improvement from the previous ones to some extent (Agbu, 2012). The 2015 General Election was overwhelmingly regarded as an improvement and a credible one, better than all the previous four elections conducted in the Fourth Republic (Ayanda and Odunayo, 2015;Ewi, 2015;Nwagwu, 2015). The recently concluded 2019 General Election recorded further improvement in the process of the electoral conduct. ...
A periodic election is a fundamental pillar and backbone of any democratic regime, and for a proper election to take place there must be some activities, most especially by parties and contestants to vote for them most especially competing to secure the electorates. These activities require huge expenditure from the parties and their financiers through campaigns, media advertisements and other related activities. The problem is that parties and their candidates are allowed, in Nigeria constitutionally and by the Electoral Act 2010, to source their campaign finance privately, which has led to illegal financing. The objective of this paper is to examine the sources of parties' campaign expenditure in the Fourth Republic, taking the 2015 General Election as the case study. The research used a qualitative method of data collection and analysis where both primary and secondary sources were used. The primary source was an in-depth personal interview with some selected informants/participants from the categories of stakeholders in the electoral process, Article 2 International Area Studies Review 00(0) parties, and agencies responsible for regulating their activities. The secondary source was the use of available documents such as books, journals and Internet sources on the subject matter of the study. The data obtained were analysed and interpreted using thematic analytical interpretations from the informants' views and the existing data in the field. The research discovered that there are basically six major sources of campaign expenditure for parties and that some of the sources are illegal and the spending has violated the regulations. The research recommends thorough supervision and monitoring of the sources of parties' campaign expenditure and the spending process.
... Emerging scholarly interrogation of the 2015 presidential election tends to devote attention to explaining why Jonathan lost and Buhari won (see Animashaun, 2015;Owen and Usman, 2015;Ewi, 2015;Orji 2017). Overall, there seems to be a consensus amongst scholars that the March 15, 2015 polls were keenly contested, substantially fair, and less violent than others in Nigeria's electoral history. ...
Nigeria's 2015 Presidential Election was widely seen as competitive, fair and less violent than other elections since the transition to democracy in 1999. This paper does not argue otherwise. Rather, it problematizes ethnic voting behaviour and voting patterns observed in the election and raises questions about their implications for institutionalisation of democracy and social conflicts in Nigeria. It argues that while scholarly examinations portray the presidential election results as 'victory for democracy', not least because an incumbent president was defeated for the first time in Nigeria, analysis of the spatial structure of votes cast reveals a predominant pattern of voting along ethnic, religious and geospatial lines. It further contends that this identity-based voting not only translates into a phenomenon of 'voting without choosing,' but is also problematic for social cohesion, interethnic harmony and peacebuilding in Nigeria. The relaxation of agitations for resource control in the Niger Delta throughout President Jonathan's tenure and its revival in post-Jonathan regime is illustrative of the dilemmas and contradictions of ethnic voting and voting without choosing in Nigeria. This observation draws policy attention to addressing structural underpinnings of the relationship between ethnicity, geography and voting behaviour in Nigerian politics so as to consolidate democratic gains and enhance democratic peace in Nigeria. Nigeria's 2015 Presidential election has been described as a turning point in the country's political history and democratic evolution. For
... The 2015 General Election in Nigeria was conducted in an atmosphere of intense fear, insecurity, political alliance and re-alliance while the campaign was dominated by great issues of national concern such as: insecurity, corruption, unemployment, and poverty as observed by many scholars. These scholars also stressed that the Boko Haram insurgency, corruption, poverty, unemployment and poor economic policies compelled for the campaign process to be on matters of national interest and that has made a significant impact on the outcome of the election (Centre for Public Policy Alternative 2015, Africa Centre for Strategic Studies 2015, Ewi 2015, Orji 2015, Ayanda & Odunayo 2015, Chukwudi 2015, International Republican Institute 2015, Omilusi 2015, Ahar 2015and Oji 2015. ...
The Nigerian 2015 General Election is one of the elections in the world that drew lots of attention and analysis as a result of its uniqueness and the many successes and challenges recorded which provide a lesson for future elections in Nigeria and other countries in the world. The aim of this work is to investigate the successes and challenges recorded in the election with a view to provide a better alternative for an improved election in future. The problem is the way many Nigerians and those outside Nigeria overwhelmingly are carried away by the defeat of the incumbent by opposition which made them to perceive the election wholeheartedly as credible despite many challenges that it faced. The research used qualitative method of data collection and analysis. It is a qualitative particularistic case study which used primary and secondary data. The primary data was interview from different stakeholders that are involved in the electoral process and the secondary data is the use of available literature on the subject matter. The data obtained was presented in tabular and figurative forms and analysed using thematic analytical interpretations for findings. The research discovered that, the 2015 General Election is an improvement on the previous elections especially in the Fourth Republic as a result of the techniques adopted in the conduct but there are still challenges that must be looked into in future to make the election more credible. The research recommends that the areas that recorded significant improvement should be maintained while in the areas of challenges it should be look into against the next election.
Keywords: Election, Nigeria, Successes, Challenges, Implication, 2015.
The study explored the usage, frequency and prominence of placements of propaganda devices by All Progressives Congress and People’s Democratic Party in select Nigerian newspapers during the 2019 electioneering campaigns. Content analysis design was used. Sample size of 288 was drawn from a population of 1,096 daily and weekly editions of four national newspapers in Nigeria between July 2018 and March 2019. Systematic sampling technique and intercoder reliability of 92% were used. The study found that propaganda devices were effectively used by political parties with grave implications for the processes of political communications in Nigeria. The most used propaganda devices were name-calling and bandwagon while the least used was transfer. These appeared more daily, placed in the front and inside pages, and helped to advance the tenets of agenda-setting and propaganda theories. It concluded that the usage, frequency, and prominence of placements of propaganda devices are effectually important in the entire process of electioneering, coverage, and mobilization, but recommended a professional use of propaganda to mitigate its reference as a negative tool of communication.