The 2019 General Elections, Logistics Challenges and Electoral Transparency: the Implications for Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria

Abstract

The beauty of democracy lies in the sovereign power it confers on the people to make choice of leaders based on popular mandate. The incursion of the military into Nigeria government and politics for more than three decades had been a disaster for the country’s democratic governance inherited from British colonial rule. However, after over 20 years of the return of uninterrupted democratic governance in 1999, democratic principles, norms and ethics of free and unfettered electoral processes are yet to be adequately internalized. Several elections organized to effect change of government between 1999-2019 have ended up in charade of electoral irregularities, with each election period gaining more sophistication than the previous one. This paper interrogated the logistic challenges that vitiated the transparency of electoral process in 2019 in view of the introduction of the new electronic device, Card Reader, to forestall electoral frauds. The paper adopted Marxist theory of post-colonial state as adumbrated by Hamza Alvi and others. The study argues that democratic consolidation has become elusive in Nigeria because of high level of electoral manipulations by the political class who are interested in capturing power by all means for primitive accumulation. The study recommends that the rules of the game must be strictly adhered to and all logistic plans put in place to avoid political apathy and advance our electoral process in the subsequent elections.