Antidotes to Nigeria’s voter apathy syndrome

“The greatest threat to democracy is indifference.” – former United States president, Franklin Roosevelt.

This is not a rejoinder to last Sunday’s editorial of this newspaper titled “Voter apathy: Onus on politicians to govern well.” However, I am using this commentary to amplify the root causes of low voter turnout at our successive elections and the panacea to the ugly phenomenon. Just last Monday, December 2, 2024, I was in Akure, the Ondo State capital, at a technical session on Campaign Finance Monitoring for the 2024 Ondo governorship elections organised by Kimpact Development Initiative, where it was established that there seems to be an inverse relationship between vote buying and voter turnout. This is because, despite politicians doling out money to induce voters to vote for them, there is a downward trend in the turnout of voters at elections.

The earlier referenced Sunday Punch editorial led readers to statistical data of our general and off-cycle elections since 2007. By the umpire’s (i.e., INEC) account, voter turnout in general elections has been in steady decline since the 2007 elections. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, 57.54 per cent of voter turnout was recorded in 2007, 53.68 per cent in 2011, 43.65 per cent in 2015, 34.75 per cent in 2019, and 26.72 per cent in 2023. The newspaper did a comparative analysis of Nigeria with two other countries, the UK and the USA. According to it, “The United Kingdom general election of 2024, won by Keir Starmer of Labour, recorded a turnout of 59.7 per cent. Out of the 244 million eligible voters in the November 2024 American election won by Donald Trump of the Republican Party, 150 million cast their ballots, a turnout of 64 per cent. This is far better than in Nigeria, where the minority elects the presidents, governors, and lawmakers.” Mind-boggling!

This newspaper went on to say that “The November 16 Ondo governorship election corroborated the worrisome low voter turnout at elections since 2007. Voter turnout was put at 24.8 per cent, the lowest in the governorship elections in the state since 1999. Data from INEC says Ondo recorded 42.4 per cent in the governorship election in 2007, 38.1 per cent in 2012, 35.3 per cent in 2016, and 32.6 per cent in 2020. Media and observers’ reports indicate that vote-buying was carried out to the most ridiculous level, with politicians doling out N10,000 to voters with impunity at polling units.”
In the Edo governorship election held two months before Ondo’s, low voter turnout was also reportedly evident. The election recorded 22 per cent in 2024, the lowest turnout in the state since 2016. The electoral umpire’s account says 32 per cent was recorded in 2016 and 25 per cent in 2020. Dataphyte says that Anambra State recorded the same trend: 68 per cent voter turnout in 2007, 16.33 per cent in 2010, 24.98 per cent in 2013, 21.74 per cent in 2017, and 10.38 per cent in 2021, the worst in the state since 1999.

The conclusion reached by The PUNCH editorial is that lack of good governance is responsible for the lethargic attitude of the electorate to the polls. This is partially true, but it is just a fraction of what is responsible for voter apathy. However, before I come to the other causative factors, I would like to drill down on the rationale behind the assumption that the first three elections in this Fourth Republic recorded better turnout of voters. It is not necessarily so. What do I mean? The general elections of 1999, 2003, and 2007 conducted by INEC are fraught with several flaws.

Voter registers used for the aforementioned elections were heavily padded. Accreditation of voters was done without any mechanism to prevent voter fraud. Accreditations were done manually. There was no permanent voters’ card with biometric chips as we have it now; neither was there anything like Smart Card Reader or the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System device, better known as BVAS. In the period between 1999 and 2015, it was easy to have multiple voting, underage voting, voting by proxy, and contrived election results, which lack integrity. Vote buying was not prominent then because all a politician needs to win is to induce Independent National Electoral Commission
officials who simply write results in favour of the highest bidder.
All those shenanigans have largely stopped with the introduction of technology by Independent National Electoral Commission since 2010, when Prof. Attahiru Jega became Independent National Electoral Commission chairman. His coming was aided by the constitutional alteration of 2010, which gives Independent National Electoral Commission financial and administrative autonomy. A fresh voter registration exercise took place between 2010 and 2011, and it was largely devoid of the noticeable flaws of the one compiled in 2006. It is the 2011 Voter Registration database that is being built upon to this date. Independent National Electoral Commission introduced microchip-embedded PVC, introduced SCR in 2015, and BVAS in 2019. It also consolidated on the Independent National Electoral Commission

Result Viewing Portal before 2023. All these helped to reduce voter fraud. By 2019, Independent National Electoral Commission

was able to do away with the use of incident forms, which were being abused by its officials to pad votes. In summary, recent election results, especially since 2015, are a better reflection of actual voter turnout.

On October 24, 2024, the Centre for Media, Policy and Accountability, headed by the former chairman of the editorial board of Daily Trust newspapers, Dr. Suleiman A. Suleiman, held a one-day policy roundtable titled “Voter Apathy and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria: Which way forward?” I was one of the speakers at the public event. As I said in my remarks at the event, there are a number of things Nigeria needs to do if she wants to improve voters’ turnout in subsequent elections. These are as follows: Independent National Electoral Commission needs to hold all general elections in one day. Having polls over two Saturdays is wasteful and illogical. In the August 2022 Kenyan elections, polls were conducted into six political offices in one day! Also, locking down the country or state during elections is counterproductive. Many people whose polling units are not within trekking distance are automatically disenfranchised.

Furthermore, there is a need to increase voting hours. In Egypt and the US, where I have been privileged to observe elections, polls are held for 12 to 13 hours. In Nigeria, voting hours are just six. In addition, the late arrival of Independent National Electoral Commission  officials for duties has led many potential voters to leave in frustration without exercising their franchise. There should be provision for early voting so that millions of registered voters who are going to be on election duties such as poll officials, security agents, accredited journalists, and observers can vote ahead of the main election day. Recall that ahead of the November 5, 2024 elections in the US, 85 million registered voters had cast their ballots days and weeks before that day.

Another thing Nigeria should do is amend our laws to allow for out-of-country and diaspora voting. In the last general elections in Kenya, Kenyans living in 12 other countries were allowed to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice without having to travel home. Also in Kenya, prisoners are allowed to vote. This is not the situation yet in Nigeria. Allowing independent candidates to contest for political offices also has the potential to increase voters’ participation. Peaceful campaigns devoid of arson, killing, maiming, and fake news can instill confidence in voters to participate in elections. Pre-election violence has the power to scare away voters on election day.
How candidates emerge victorious in Nigeria’s election is too simple. For legislative positions, it is first-past-the-post. For executive positions, you need 25 per cent of valid votes cast in two-thirds of the country, state, or wards, depending on whether it is a presidential, governorship, or local government chairmanship poll. In other climes that have adopted the French model, a contestant needs to score 50+1 votes, which is an absolute majority, to be declared the winner. In such countries like Ghana and most Francophone countries, voter mobilisation is taken seriously by political parties and candidates, unlike in our clime where this onerous responsibility has been abdicated to Independent National Electoral Commission , NOA, and CSOs. Of course, as earlier said, there is the need for improved governance with palpable dividends of democracy to the people. All these measures, if taken, will lead to significant improvement in voters’ turnout.