Electoral Violence And Democratic Consolidation In Nigeria: A Case Study Of Sokoto State, 2009 - 2011 Election

ABSTRACT

Nigeria has earned an appellation for herself as a show case of Africa’s democracy for several score of years. Ironically, every journey towards such democratic process/experience had been laden with electoral violence even since the colonial days. With the rebirth of African liberalism and the wave of democratic consolidation process that swept across the globe/world in the 1990’s, electoral violence returned in a more frightening dimension in most African states. It is, therefore, against this background that this study examined the challenges of electoral violence in Nigeria with a particular focus on Sokoto state 2009 to 2011. Methodologically, the study employed quantitative method through the use of both primary and secondary sauces of data. Thus questionnaire was used as a tool of data collection while data collected from the documentary (secondary source such as newspapers, official document and journal) were analyzed. Theoretically, the elite theory was adopted in this study. The framework seems to link the political elite and how they gain power and maintains it in the society. Also the theory shows how elite perpetuate electoral violence for their own selfish interest. The relevance of the framework is underscored by the fact that in most African countries, the various conflict that usually develop during democratic process are mostly of the elite kinds, which in Nigeria are essentially organized around competing materialistic interests of various sections in the society that soon after, the political environment was hostile to development and internal struggle for power was the absolute focus that led to electoral violence. The study therefore revealed that cross materialism, weakness of economic foundation of democracy and the value placed on politics by the political elites are very significant in explaining the occurrence of this violence. also the strategy of violence in the bid to achieve selfish ends, mostly through engaging unemployed youths and thugs. in this respect, the study conducted revealed that the electoral violence has continued to threaten the democratic experience in Sokoto state and Nigeria at large. This has resulted in serious loss of lives and properties and brought about political apathy in the democratic process thereby engendering legitimacy crises as well as hampering the ability of government to delivers on its promises of democracy can neither be sustained nor consolidated.