Governance and Local Government Elections in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic

Nwanna, Chinwe R.

doi:10.2307/j.ctvh8r3wf.10

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…While general election has a fixed date for all the contending positions, the LG polls re conducted disjointedly by the state governors based on the convenient time that they feel satisfied that all factors will work towards their ambitious 100% formula of victory. This situation was reported previously by Nwanna (2010), Olasupo & Fayomi (2012)…”

Section: Examination Of the Cases Of Fraud In The Local Council Polls...supporting

confidence: 88%

“…The elections are conducted by State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) directly under the control and monitoring of state governors (International Foundation for Electoral Systems, 1999). That power to freely participate in the process of voting for leaders in a democratic process is deprived of people at the local level where dubious elections are conducted falling short of even the minimal standard (Nwanna, 2010). The changing nature of local government in Nigeria is gradually obliterating the culture and structure of their operations and performance especially politically because the leaders are not appointed in the name of election by the SIECs (Olasupo & Fayomi, 2012).…”

Section: Overview Of Local Council Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study limits the analysis to the LG polls conducted only in post-2019 General Election. This is because some studies (International Foundation for Electoral Systems, 1999;Nwanna, 2010;Olasupo & Fayomi, 2012;Nwanna, 2014;Gambo, 2015;Ojebode et al 2017;Olaniyi, 2017;Commonwealth, 2019;Sambo &Sule, 2020 andOluwasuji &Okajare, 2021), examined previous LG elections and the fraud attached to them to a lesser extent. This study periscope through the past investigations and discovered that not much attention is paid on the aspect of electoral fraud at the grassroots level and particularly after the 2019 General Election.…”

Section: Local Council Polls In Post-2019 General Electionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although, many individuals will mistake electoral fraud as an affair that is the exclusive practice of emerging democracies, the phenomenon is reported worldwide including the advanced democracies of America and England (Dawson, 2020). Politicians in their bid to secure power at all cost sometimes sacrifice democratic values on the altar of fraud and subversion of the standard practice (Nwanna, 2010). Rigging, perpetrating of violence, intimidation of opposition and their supporters, excessive spending and violation of regulations that foster fair play, abstention from providing voting materials, ballot stuffing, ballot snatching, vote buying, bribery of electoral stakeholders, damaging, ballot box stealing, terrorising of voters and other means of circumventing the legal and credible process of electoral conduct are all identified as forms of electoral fraud (Nwanna, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unmasking the Tape of Electoral Fraud in Grassroots Nigeria: Evidence from the Management of the Local Council Elections by the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs)

Deribe¹,

Sambo²,

Sule³

et al. 2021

Middle East Res J Humanities Soc Sci

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Electoral fraud is identified as an albatross on genuine democratisation in Nigerian politics. The Nigerian political culture demonstrates a zero-sum game where a winner takes all and where a winner employs all amoral ineptitude to secure victory. The situation is escalated at the grassroots level in the country where the constitutional three-tier of the federal, state and local system was bastardised by the states who succeeded in emasculating the local governments under their absolute personal control. The local council polls usually turned into a charade that is perpetuated by charlatans in the name of elections where in reality, forceful imposition, selection and subversion of the process became the order of the day. The study examined how the use of SIECs aided the phenomenon of electoral fraud at the grassroots level where the local council elections are designed and arrested by state governors based on their selfish desire. The study utilised both primary and secondary sources of data. The data obtained were analysed and interpreted using mixed method of statistical tools and content analysis. The study discovered that the SIECs became tools in the pawn of the state governors that they leveraged in manipulating the local government elections against the will of the electorates at the grassroots and that has tremendously affects the democratisation process in the country where authentic institutional building remains a mirage even after more than 20 years of democratic experiment. The study recommends that the SIECs should be abrogated and the INEC should conduct the local council elections together with the national elections at the same time.

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Section: Examination Of the Cases Of Fraud In The Local Council Polls...supporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Overview Of Local Council Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Local Council Polls In Post-2019 General Electionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Unmasking the Tape of Electoral Fraud in Grassroots Nigeria: Evidence from the Management of the Local Council Elections by the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs)

Deribe¹,

Sambo²,

Sule³

et al. 2021

Middle East Res J Humanities Soc Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Local Multiparty Democracy in Africa

Steytler¹

2021

Democracy, Elections, and Constitutionalism in Africa

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This chapter argues that democratic local government embeds the culture of democracy at grassroots: as the government closest to the people, it establishes a culture of responsiveness, transparency, and accountability more readily and effectively than by holding national leaders to account. Local democracy can also be used strategically when a country seeks to move from an authoritarian or military regime to democracy. Furthermore, it provides space for political inclusivity—an argument with particular relevance in ethnically diverse societies, where a winner-takes-all paradigm of competition at the national level typically results in the marginalization of geographically concentrated losers. Finally, local government allows for experimentation in different forms of inclusive politics, be they representative or participatory. However, although most African countries have adopted decentralization policies, the dividends are meagre. Local government is but feebly equipped to play a democracy-constituting role: operating in a constrained constitutional environment, central governments have generally not allowed local governments the opportunity to hold regular free and fair elections and thereby play a role in democratization. Despite these findings, there is also some evidence that on occasion local democracy has indeed played such a role and thus enhanced democratic participation.

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Challenges of Democracy in Nigerian Local Government System: A Critical Analysis

G.I.¹,

I.B.²,

I.B.³

2021

Journal of Advanced Research and Multidisciplinary Studies

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After two decades of the return to civil rule, the not too impressive scorecard of Nigerian democracy has raised concerns and questions demanding answers as to why the country is still struggling with the delivery of democratic governance and dividends such as; social welfare, justice, even-federal development as well as equal access to national resources. The paper inspects carefully, those factors that have and are hindering the success of democracy and democratic governance in Nigeria especially at the local government level. In doing this, related literatures were reviewed while the Structural Functionalist theory is adopted as the theoretical model or frame work and the collection of data was carried out through the secondary source. The study reveals that democracy in Nigeria especially at the local government level has not done up to its expectation due largely to corruption, partisan politics, upper governmental interference, lack of local government autonomy, among others. It therefore recommends that among other things, the local governments should be granted it constitutional autonomy in powers and functions, the fight against corruption should be stretched to the local government areas while Local government officials are made accountable to the local residence and that the leaders should be more ethical in their political pursue

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Governance and Local Government Elections in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Unmasking the Tape of Electoral Fraud in Grassroots Nigeria: Evidence from the Management of the Local Council Elections by the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs)

Unmasking the Tape of Electoral Fraud in Grassroots Nigeria: Evidence from the Management of the Local Council Elections by the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs)

Local Multiparty Democracy in Africa

Challenges of Democracy in Nigerian Local Government System: A Critical Analysis

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