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Poverty And Electoral Violence In Nigeria
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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Elections
are the central processes of democratic representative government
because in any democracy the authority of government derives solely from
the consent of the governed. The principal mechanism for translating
the consent into governmental authority ideally is by holding free and
fair elections. Nigeria‘s fourth republic appears to be very chaotic,
incessant violent conflict ranges from religious, identity to communal.
Elaigwu (2005a) identified 17 major violent conflicts in Nigeria from
May 1985 to May 1st 1999. However, from May 31, 1999 to June 2005 he
identified at least 121 cases of conflicts in Nigeria. He attributed
sudden increase in violent conflict in the country to: a strong central
government; popular agitation for decentralised structure;
dissatisfaction with the distribution of available resources; communal
conflicts and demands by some sub-national groups for greater
self-determination (Eliagwu, 2005b). He continued that the years of
military rule suppressed these issues from exploding into uncontrollable
conflagration. He likened the Nigerian polity as a bottle of wine,
properly corked and airtight. With the dawn of democracy and the opening
of the bottle, the wine explosively popped up (Eliagwu, 2005b). It
appears the dawn of democracy provided the atmosphere to ventilate
bottled-up frustrations, grievances and fears generously and often times
recklessly (Adebanwi, 2004). Though there are several works on
conflicts in Nigeria, few appear to link violent conflict in Nigeria to
democracy with particular focus on the fourth republic. For example,
Haliru (2012), focused on ethnicity, Onapajo (2012), focused on religion
and political violence, Saheed (2012) emphasised economic dimension of
social conflicts in Nigeria. In Nigeria, elections have become an avenue
for legitimization of bad governance. This assertion hinges on the fact
that incumbent government holds on to power at all cost while
opposition parties in a bid to capture state power, resort to all manner
of irregularities. The result of this is usually violence of one sort
or the other. Events which unfolded in Plateau State during the last
election show that the most contentious issues about the election have
to do with electoral violence which hitherto, is unheard of in Plateau
State politics. The political atmosphere in the state became unusually
tensed while many interest groups emerged with the intent to capture
power. The result of these was a bitter warfare that ensued between
these factions, leading to allegations, killings, kidnappings, etc that
were politically motivated, In fact a gubernatorial candidate, Jesse
Aruku, of the Action Congress was assassinated on July 2nd 2006. It is
in view of the above that the researcher intend to investigate the
effect of poverty and electoral violence in Nigeria with emphasis on
Donga local government area.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main
objective of this study is to ascertain the effect of poverty and
electoral violence in Nigeria with emphasis on Donga local government
area. But to aid the completion of the study, the researcher intend to
achieve the following specific objective;
To examine the role of poverty in instigating electoral violence
To ascertain if there is any significant relationship between poverty and electoral violence in Donga local government area
To examine the effect of electoral violence on the democratic process of Nigeria
To ascertain impact of poverty as a catalyst to electoral violence in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 3]
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This study focuses mainly on the criminal manifestations of the youth Donga metropolis under the Fourth Republic, which has become a thorn to the effective workings of democratic values, especially, in the conduct of free and fair elections. Since the re-emergence of democratic rule, in Nigeria and Donga metropolis in particular, in 1999, political violence has being playing a prominent role in political processes that threatens the emergence of people oriented government. It is against this bac ... Continue reading---
