Election and violence in 2016 rerun elections in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria’s democracy suffers from special problems of free, fair, non-credible, and violent elections drowned in vote buying. To be stable, democracy must be deemed legitimate by the people and will not be valued unless it deals effectively with social problems and achieves a modicum of order and justice. The 2016 Rerun elections in Rivers State revealed threats against election officials, violation of human rights of voters and citizens by non-state armed groups and state security forces energized by politicians. Pervasive corruption and the resulting political instability make for very poor investment climate. Unfortunately, without growing investment in legitimate enterprise, corruption and electoral violence will retain their appeals to the army of unemployed youths. The paper therefore examined the numerous factors impeding constitutional democracy in Nigeria. This paper took a step further to demonstrate how some of these factors exacerbate the challenge of development. In doing this, our overarching philosophical framework is that the nature of the state is dialectically related to the securitization of political contestations, monetization of the electoral process and violence. The paper also argued that the role of youth in electoral violence is an evitable consequence of structural violence in society and the nature of the Nigerian state.

Keywords: Nigeria’s democracy, special problems, violation of human rights, corruption and poor investment climate