Choosing Without Voting: Exploring the Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria, 2011 - 2019
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Voting during elections is a fundamental right of citizens with universal adult suffrage through which political office holders are selected and judged.It has always being sabotaged or enhanced by political elites in their struggle for power acquisition as an instrument for demonstrating people's choicean act that breeds violence and instability.This paper explores the manifestation and patterns of this sabotage in the Nigerian political system, and its impact on political stability from 2011 -2019.Archival method of data collection and trend analysis were adopted for the inquiry.The results of analyses reveal among others that between 2011 and 2019, systemic/institutional non-violent voters' disenfranchisement, which encumberates voters from expressing their political choices, prevailed; and this has continued to enhance and network forces of political instability in spite of monumental reforms.The paper, therefore, recommends among others the depoliticisation of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) through the granting of its full autonomy under National Assembly supervision instead of the executive.
Authors: Obioji ., osephine Nneka, Anyadike ., Nkechinyere O
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409308733