Electoral Malpractices in Nigeria; Civic Education as an Antidote

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VI, Issue VIII, August 2019 | ISSN 2321–2705

Electoral Malpractices in Nigeria; Civic Education as an Antidote

Ewuga, Lucky Ekka

Department of Arts and Social Science Education, Faculty of Education, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Nigeria

Abstract— Nigeria as a nation has been bedeviled long enough by political instability fueled largely by crisis in her electoral process and in specific, electoral malpractices. With decades of Nigeria’s existence as a sovereign state, her political as well as electoral processes have been characterized at different level of political participation by incident of political thuggery, chaos, militarization, violence, votes’ manipulation, unending law suits and crisis of legitimacy. It is in this content that this paper explains the extent to which civil education could be used in introducing the citizens at young age, to basic rules, institutions, practices and principles of democratic political system, in view of reducing or eradicating electoral malpractice from the Nigerian political system. In this context, the following recommendations were made: That a broad curriculum for civic education should be developed by educational stakeholders to include the identified problems herein; That government at all levels should set out on rigorous periodical campaigns on such policies and activities that will enhance participation of majority of the citizens in democratic process by encouraging civic education; That Civil societies as well as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) should complement the activities of government in promoting civic knowledge acquisition among the citizenry for better actualization of genuine democracy and overall development national development; The National Orientation Agency should embark on mounting civic education programmes before elections in the country; The government should establish a competent electoral offences tribunal, task with the responsibility of criminal prosecution of electoral offenders and lastly, reorientation of values in our society remains a task that must be done by stakeholders

Key words— Election, Electoral Malpractice, Nigeria, Political system, Civic Education and Antidote.

I. INTRODUCTION

One of the critical and prominent features of any meaningful democracy accepted all over the world is the conduct of acceptable, credible, free and fair elections. Reason being that, concrete and stable political development as well as electoral system which call forth sustenance of democracy is determined by free and fair election.

Read More