Electoral Violence in Nigeria: Insights From Off-Cycle Subnational Elections

Abstract

There is a popular assumption that off-cycle subnational elections should be better governed and more peaceful than general elections. This position is premised on the notion that limited geographical and demographical scope of such elections offers the national electoral body, security agencies and other key actors in electoral governance the opportunities to concentrate resources and energies in a given jurisdiction for maximum efficiencies. These have encouraged advocacy to unbundle the Electoral Management Body, namely the Independent National Electoral Commission by decentralising electoral governance. However, this assumption has not been subjected to adequate academic scrutiny. This study, therefore, examines comparatively, records of violence in off-cycle subnational elections conducted in Edo, Kogi and Ondo States between 2019 and 2020, and those of Nigeria’s 2019 general elections. The study is descriptive by design, with data largely extracted from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and analysed using mixed method.

Keywords

Election electoral violence off-cycle election subnational election Nigeria Edo Kogi Ondo

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abati

(2021) INEC polling units and the future of elections in Nigeria. Premium Times, 20 June. Available at: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/469219-inec-polling-units-and-the-future-of-elections-in-nigeria-by-reuben-abati.html (accessed 15 September 2021).

Abebiyi

(2021) Ballots and bullets: electoral violence and gubernatorial elections in Oyo State, Nigeria, 2007–2015. The African Review 48(1): 74–99.

Adepegba

(2019) INEC insures one million personnel involved in 2019 polls. Punch, 7 February. Available at: https://punchng.com/inec-insures-one-million-personnel-involved-in-2019-polls/ (accessed 15 September 2021).

Agbaje

Adejumobi

(2006) Do votes count? The travails of electoral politics in Nigeria. Africa Development 31(3): 25–44.

Ajilore

(2015) Acclaims, attacks and defences in Nigerian gubernatorial debate. Discourse & Communication 9(1): 3–18.

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) (2019) Codebook. Available at: https://acleddata.com (accessed 10 September 2019).

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) 2021. Data. Available at: https://acleddata.com/data-export-tool/ (accessed 30 January 2022)

Awosusi

Fasanmi

(2011) Do or die politics: psycho-demographic influence on attitude towards election rigging in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 15: 3895–3901.

Ayomola

Adewumi

(2017) Challenges of managing electoral violence and its effect on democratisation process: the Ekiti State experience. In: Wuam

Ezonbi

Jonah

(eds) The Fourth Republic in Nigeria: Politics, Elections and Civil Society. Lagos, Nigeria: Bahiti and Dalila Publishers, pp. 69–93.

10.

Bekoe

(2011) Nigeria’s 2011 Elections: Best Run, but Most Violent. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace.

11.

Bekoe

Burchard

(2017) The contradictions of pre-election violence: the effects of violence on voter turnout in Sub-Saharan Africa. African Studies Review 60(2): 73–92.

12.

Bratton

(2008) Vote buying and violence in Nigerian election campaigns. Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 99. Available at: files.ethz.ch/isn/91313/AfropaperNo99.pdf

13.

Cheibub

Hays

(2017) Elections and civil war in Africa. Political Science Research and Methods 5(1): 81–102.

14.

Daxecker

(2014) All quiet on election day? International election observation and incentives for pre-election violence in African elections. Electoral Studies 34: 232–243.

15.

Discourse

Eze-Michael

Oluwamodede

(2019) Independent National Electoral Commission and the conduct of credible elections in Nigeria: a study of Osun State gubernatorial election in 2018, SSRN (September 21, 2021). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3927966

16.

FGN. (2010) Nigerian Electoral Act, 2010. Abuja, Nigeria: FGN.

17.

Goldsmith

(2015) Elections and civil violence in new multiparty regimes: evidence from Africa. Journal of Peace Research 52(5): 607–621.

18.

Hafner-Burton

Hyde

Jablonski

(2018) Surviving elections: election violence, incumbent victory, and post-election repercussions. British Journal of Political Science 48(2): 459–488.

19.

Hamalai

Egwu

Omotola

(2017) Nigeria’s 2015 General Elections: Continuity and Change in Electoral Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

20.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) (2019) Time Table and Schedule of Activities for the Kogi State Governorship Election. Abuja, Nigeria: INEC.

21.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) (2020a) Time Table and Schedule of Activities for the Edo State Governorship Election. Abuja, Nigeria: INEC.

22.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) (2020b) Time Table and Schedule of Activities for the Ondo State Governorship Election. Abuja, Nigeria: INEC.

23.

Kuenzi

Lambright

(2015) Campaign appeals in Nigeria’s 2007 gubernatorial elections. Democratization 22(1): 134–156.

24.

Mbah

Nzeadibe

Nwangwu

, et al. (2020) Separatist threat, militarization and voter turnout: exploring the dynamics of the 2017 governorship election in Anambra State, Nigeria. Journal of Asian and African Studies 55: 1093–1107.

25.

Nwachukwu

(2018) 2019: INEC reveals number of workers it needs for Nigeria election. Daily Post, 20 July. Available at: https://dailypost.ng/2018/07/20/2019-inec-reveals-number-workers-needs-nigeria-election/ (accessed 15 September 2021).

26.

Ogaba

(2016) Presidential and gubernatorial elections in the fourth republic. In: Elections and Governance in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Dakar: Codesria. Available at: https://publication.codesria.org/index.php/pub/catalog/download/55/242/532?inline=1

27.

Okoye

(2021a) The election security and off-season elections in Nigeria: the November 16, 2019 governorship election in Bayelsa State. International Journal of Innovative Legal & Political Studies 9(1): 1–15.

28.

Okoye

(2021b) The election security and off-season elections in Nigeria: the November 16, 2019 governorship election in Kogi State experience. International Journal of Innovative Social Sciences & Humanities Research 9(1): 16–28.

29.

Olaniyan

Amao

(2015) Election as warfare: militarization of elections and the challenges of democratic consolidation in Nigeria. International Affairs Forum 6(1): 71–83.

30.

Omilusi

(2021) Party politics, passive stakeholders and vengeful governorship election campaign in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Brazilian Journal of African Studies 6(2): 211–232.

31.

Omotola

(2009) Garrison’ democracy in Nigeria: the 2007 general elections and the prospects of democratic consolidation. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 47(2): 195–221.

32.

Omotola

(2010a) Elections and democratic transitions in Nigeria under the fourth republic. African Affairs 109(437): 535–553.

33.

Omotola

(2010b) Mechanisms of post-election conflict resolution in Africa’s ‘new’ democracies. African Security Review 19(2): 2–13.

34.

Omotola

(2011a) Electoral reform and the prospects of democratic consolidation in Nigeria. Journal of African Elections 10(1): 187–207.

35.

Omotola

(2011b) Explaining electoral violence in Africa’s new democracies. African Journal on Conflict Resolution 10(3): 52–73.

36.

Omotola

(2013) Trapped in transition: Nigeria’s first democratic decade and beyond. Taiwan Journal of Democracy 9(2): 171–200.

37.

Omotola

(2019) Dynamics of delegation: reforms in the recruitment, training and deployment of ad-hoc election personnel. In: Paper presented at The Electoral Institute (TEI) policy dialogue on dynamics of delegation, Abuja, Nigeria, 28 June.

38.

Omotola

(2021) The troubled trinity: election, democracy and development in Nigeria. In: An inaugural lecture, text of the 3rd inaugural lecture, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria, 14 December.

39.

Onapajo

(2014) Violence and votes in Nigeria: the dominance of incumbents in the use of violence to rig elections. Africa Spectrum 49(2): 27–51.

40.

Oyewole

Omotola

(2022) Violence in Nigeria’s 2019 general elections: trend and geospatial dimensions. GeoJournal 87: 2393–2403.

41.

Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) (2021) INEC creates additional 56,872 polling units, 17 June. Available at: https://placng.org/Legist/inec-creates-additional-56872-polling-units/ (accessed on 15 September, 2021).

42.

Salehyan

Linebarger

(2015) Elections and social conflict in Africa, 1990–2009. Studies in Comparative International Development 50: 23–49.

43.

Turnbull

(2021) Elite competition, social movements, and election violence in Nigeria. International Security 45(3): 40–78.

44.

Umukoro

(2014) The dialectics of electoral politics in Nigeria: displacement of ethnicity and corruption in the 2012 Edo State gubernatorial elections. Journal of Third World Studies 31(2): 179–196.