Monitoring and Observing Nigeria’s 2011 Elections (original) (raw)
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Since 1999, elections have become regular in Nigeria. From 1999 to 2023 the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had conducted six consecutive elections. During each of these elections foreign observers trooped into the country in order to study and monitor the electioneering process from campaign to elections. This paper examines the challenges of foreign election observations within the context of how such observations improve or undermine the credibility of these elections. The paper thus argued that credible elections are the hallmark of democratic society, and foreign observations, despite it's controversially helps to improve the credibility of Nigeria's elections through identification of areas of strengths and weakness or problems to be address. Often, INEC has been responding to their observations, which accordingly improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the electoral process in the country.
The Challenge of Foreign Election Observations in Nigeria.
CYPAN International Journal of Social Science and Economic Development, 2023
Since 1999, elections have become regular in Nigeria. From 1999 to 2023 the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had conducted six consecutive elections. During each of these elections foreign observers trooped into the country in order to study and monitor the electioneering process from campaign to elections. This paper examines the challenges of foreign election observations within the context of how such observations improve or undermine the credibility of these elections. The paper thus argued that credible elections are the hallmark of democratic society, and foreign observations, despite it's controversially helps to improve the credibility of Nigeria's elections through identification of areas of strengths and weakness or problems to be address. Often, INEC has been responding to their observations, which accordingly improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the electoral process in the country.
Scholars Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences , 2017
Elections in emerging democracies such as Nigeria have overtime been fraught with controversies, due to lackin tradition of impartiality and undemocratic nature of politics in that part of the world. This has made international election monitoring and observation (IEMO) imperative. Existing studies have largely focused on the external politics of IEMO to the neglect of internal factors such as high premium placed on election victory, effects of electoral relatedviolence on IEMO outcome and the peaceful conduct of election, the interface between local and international observers‟ reports and their implications for democracy. This study, therefore, investigated the influence of aforementioned internal factors on IEMO outcome and democracy in Nigeria. Keywords: Politics, election, international election monitoring and observation, electoral violence.
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The third wave of democracy, occasioned by protests and calls for popular elections, has compelled many authoritarian regimes to democratize. Central to the democratization process is the inevitable role of elections and observation. Studies of international election observation experience in Nigeria have discussed the emerging and contending issues in a narrow sense, which underscores the need for a broader engagement. Relying on the use of the qualitative method, this study explores the nature, dynamics, and outcomes of international election observation and its effect on the democratization process in Nigeria. This study argues that permitting international election observers to monitor Nigeria's electoral process to instill credibility and sanity into the process in line with global best practices has remained one of the most controversial issues in Nigeria's electoral conduct. Hence, the authentication of an election has remained a function of power and politics. Therefore, Nigeria's experiences with international election observation have remained mostly a democratic procedural measure, with few or no significant changes to electoral values and outcomes. This study concludes that Nigeria must be proactive in stabilizing her democratization process, building and supporting political institutions, discouraging antidemocratic leadership style, and encouraging democratic values of playing politics according to the game's rules. Also, Western countries and their election observer groups should maintain neutrality by providing technical assistance without direct participation in the electoral process.
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In the early years of Nigeria, its democratic structures suffered a great setback as the military intervened in its political life partly on account of the rigging, acrimony and bloodletting that attended the 1964 general elections and the 1965 western regional elections. Since then and through all other subsequent elections, there have been accusations and counter accusations by the contending political parties of rigging or manipulation of the electoral process .Hence the adoption of the practice of election observation or monitoring in the 1990's with a view to strengthening the country's democracy. Since the practice crept into the country's political landscape, the study discovered that, it has to some extent, further propped the country's democracy as some voters now have confidence more than ever before, to participate in the country's elections believing that their votes will count. However of recent, there is this allegation that some of the observers do compromise the process of observation as they tend to write biased report favoring the political parties they have sympathy for. Thus the suspicion that election observation might be a threat to the democracy it is supposed to protect. The study investigated this suspicion and discovered through both primary and secondary data that, although there might be few cases of comprise particularly by local observers, however, the cumulative effect of these is not enough yet to constitute a threat to democratic consolidation in the country. Despite this, the paper proceeded to recommend the panacea to ameliorate the grey areas in election observation in the country in order to make it a much stronger exercise and thereby exuding further salutary effect on the country's search for an enduring democratic temper and practice.
THE CHALLENGES OF CREDIBLE ELECTION IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF 2011 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
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Challenges of Citizen Elections Observation in Nigeria: A Historical Perspective
The near six decades of Nigeria as an independent nation has been fraught with instability arising essentially from attempts at democracy through periodic elections. These elections have been largely chacterized by hooliganism, ballot-snatching, theft of election materials, kidnapping of political opponents, assassination of political rivals, arson, assault and physical destruction of election materials and even intimidation and outright molestation or killing of election officials. This paper therefore went down the memory lane to establish and, using the Marxist theory of state attempt to explain, the pattern of elections that have characterized democracy in Nigeria and locate the place of citizen observers in Nigerian elections.
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Kuwait Chapter of Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 2013
Election management has been a critical issue in Nigeria's political history since independence, leading to the abortion of several attempts at democratic governance before 1999. Various abuses of the electoral process had been recorded in the seven general elections held before the 2011 elections. The paper evaluates the efficiency of the election management body, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in terms of preparations for the election, ability of INEC to ensure compliance to electoral laws by political parties and actors, and the level of synergy between INEC, security agencies and other institutions. The paper adopted system theory and decision making approach as theoretical constructs. The two approaches were used as platform for a content analysis of the secondary data comprising of relevant published books, scholarly journal articles, newspaper articles, conference and institutional papers, as well as materials downloaded from the internet. The paper argues that when compared with the past elections, the 2011 elections were relatively credible, free and fair. However, several shortcomings were identified including, inefficiency in the preparation for elections on the part of INEC, undemocratic imposition of candidates by all the leading political parties, and various security lapses during and after the elections. The paper concludes that INEC leadership must tackle the identified lapses, including carrying out a complete reorganization of the commission to make it more efficient, ensure strict adherence to the electoral law by all political parties and put in place security measures that deter threats.