Criminality and election outcomes in Nigeria

Barnabas Suleiman banystef@gmail.com Covenant University, Ota Ogun State, Nigeria. This study explores democratic practice in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in the light of globally prescribed and acceptable norms, tenets and values of democracy as a form of government. The study was conducted in Nigeria and adopted a multistage sampling technique to administer questionnaire to 700 delegates across the six (6) geopolitical zones of Nigeria’s 36 States. The results and findings show that Nigeria’s democracy is plagued with massive electoral fraud, including intimidation, disenfranchisement of eligible contestants and voters from participating in the democratic process, corruption of the election process, scam, and fraudulent declaration of winners of elections. The implications of such democratic deceit in Nigeria’s democracy includes voter apathy resulting from lack of confidence in the democratic process and outcome, violence and political instability and the nonparticipation of qualified and honest citizens in the politics of Nigeria. Consequently, leaders that emerge from Nigeria’s democratic politics are not always the choice of the people, which explains why they are not accountable to the people as well as why there is deficit of public trust in Nigeria’s democratic system.


INTRODUCTION
Despite the myriad of challenges associated with democratic practice (AKE, 2001;SIGNER, 2009), democracy is generally considered to be the best form of government that guarantees collective progress for the people (HELD, 2006;ACHEBE, 2012).This is because, democratic government gives the people the opportunity to elect those who would represent or lead them at the political scene.However, the democratic experiences of some nations have debunked the generally held idea that democracy is the government of the people as democracy has increasingly become associated with vices that undermine democratic norms, values and principles.Leight, Pande and Ralston (2016) note that democracy in both developed and developing countries is threatened by vote-buying; Signer (2009) identified demagoguery as a problem of democracy across the world; Held (2006) emphasized the role of despotic power in undermining democracy; Kirkpatrick (1982) identified dictatorship by democratically elected leaders as a major problem of democracy; and Gberevbie (2014) emphasized the failure of democracies because of weakened democratic institutions in some so called democratic States.
Democracy in Nigeria's Fourth Republic is bedeviled with incidences of criminality ranging from allegations and provable indictments of abuse of power and the use of the military and thugs by politicians to rigging of elections to subvert the choices of the masses (KOFAMATA, 2007;BAKARE, 2013).

DEMOCRATIC NORM FOR ELECTIONS
The Copenhagen document of 1990 articulates international standards for democratic elections (HALL;WANG, 2008) and they include: regular and periodical elections; guaranteed universal and equal suffrage; respect for the rights of citizens to seek political office; respect for the right to establish political parties and ensure that the parties can compete on the basis of equal treatment before the law; ensure that political campaigning can be conducted in a free and fair atmosphere without administrative action, violence, intimidation, or fear of retribution against candidates, parties or voters; ensure unimpeded access to the media on a nondiscriminatory basis; ensure that votes are cast by secret ballot, and are counted and reported honestly, with the results made public; ensure that candidates who win the necessary votes to be elected are duly installed and are permitted to remain in office until their terms expire.
The above standards for credible democratic elections have continued to evade Nigeria because of the antidemocratic postures and attitudes of Nigerian politicians who seldom go into politics for the purpose of selfless service of the people (GBEREVBIE, 2014;BABANAWA 2013;AKE, 1993).And because Nigerian politicians see politics as business, and engage in political affairs as means of enriching themselves (OFEIMUN, 2010), they circumvent the acceptable norms of democratic politics to win elections at all cost (ARIYE et al. 2012).Bakare (2013) has argued that Nigerian politicians do know for sure that they will fail at the polls if they ever allowed for free and fair elections.Thus, they do not let their electoral fortunes to be determined by the people through free and fair elections.The average Nigerian politician engages in all forms of electoral fraud to achieve election success.

CRIMINALITY
The credence attributed to representative democracy is derived from popular elections (COX, 1997).This highlights the importance of elections in democracy, and makes the credibility of elections essential to the survival, growth and credibility of democracy wherever they exist as a form of government.Importantly, the credibility of elections is measured not just by the existence of electoral laws but by the willingness, on the part of the political actors or electorates, to understand and adhere to the laws and practices that govern such democratic elections.Violations of the democratic norms, values and principles as stipulated by the Nigerian constitution, the electoral acts and other relevant laws in the quest to 'win' elections at all cost is what has been termed criminality in this discourse.
Although all democracies have their flaws in the context of elections (FUND, 2008), the nature and extent of violations of electoral laws and election fraud vary from country to country (DOSANTO, 2008).
It is important to identify the types of criminality that are being perpetrated by political stakeholders in Nigeria, and to determine the extent to which each of these criminal acts determine or influence election outcomes in Nigeria.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Although Nigeria currently practices democracy as a form of government, democratic politics in Nigeria has been said to be enmeshed in electoral fraud and violence, particularly in the Fourth Republic, beginning from 1999 to date (NWATU, 2004;OFEIMUM, 2010).Whereas the incidences of political corruption and election fraud have both been identified by Election Tribunal and Court judgments, not much have been determined to ascertain the contributory roles of the various acts of criminality in election outcomes in the democratic politics of Nigeria.
Thus, this paper presents what data says about the nature of criminality in Nigeria's democracy and their influence on Nigeria's election outcomes, with particular reference to primary elections.

STUDY AREA AND METHODOLOGY
The study used quantitative data by means of survey questionnaire.Selfadministered questionnaire was administered to delegates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), the two main political parties in Nigeria.The multistage sampling technique was used in selecting the sample for the study.In the first instance, the population was delineated by the six geopolitical zones that make up Nigeria.Through the use of simple random technique, six states, one state from each zone, were selected for the study.The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the central seat of government, was also added for the study.
Seven hundred (700) delegates, made up of 100 delegates each per State and the FCT, participated in the quantitative aspect of study that involves the distribution of self-administered questionnaires.However, six hundred and fiftyeight questionnaires were filled and returned.The six States that were randomly selected for this study are Adamawa, Edo, Enugu, Kaduna, Kogi and Ondo, plus the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.Table 4: shows that 61% of the respondents were Christians, 36% were Muslims, making the two religions constituting 96% of the all respondents.Again, the point is that the two religions which teach against any form of cheating or malpractices produce members as politicians.More importantly, the information from responses of research participants and literature suggest that religion plays little or no role in restraining Nigerian politicians from engaging in undemocratic political behaviour.If anything, religion serves as a tool of demagoguery to deceive gullible voters.Table 5 shows that 68% of the respondents were married, 23% were single, and 9% were either separated, divorced or widowed.Thus, the marital statuses of the respondents were majorly married and single.From the marriage statuses of the respondents, it can be deduced that the Nigerian political environment attaches significance to marriage, perhaps as a demonstration of responsibility on the part of political participants.Table 6 reveals the educational level of the respondents.70% of the respondents possess tertiary educational qualification and 30% have either primary or secondary educational qualification.What is instructive here is that most of the respondents are highly educated.But how does the level of education of the respondents help the sanctity of democratic practice in Nigeria?This question will be addressed by relevant data in the relevant sections of this study.This is even more interesting because there are no regulations on educational level as requirements for participating in primary elections, as the case is with general elections.Table 7 shows that 55% of the respondents were self-employed; 16% were either unemployed or retired; 26% were in government organizations and 3% were engaged by private organizations.As shown in Table 8, the party memberships of the respondents are 49% for the Peoples Democratic Party and 51% for the All Progressives Congress (APC).This represents a fair share of the representation of the two main political parties used for this study.
Table 9, labeled "Coefficients" below, tells the extent to which each of the independent variables included in the model contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable (election Outcomes/Victory).This can be deduced from the column labelled Beta under Standardised Coefficients.Because the goal is to compare the contribution of each independent variable, the beta values will be used.'Standardized' means that these values for each of the different variables have been converted to the same scale so that they can be compared.
In this case the largest beta coefficient is .174,which is for Votes influenced by a combination of Inducement and threats.This means that this variable makes the strongest unique contribution to explaining the dependent variable, when the variance explained by all other variables in the model is controlled for.The Beta value for voting process influenced by intimidation/ fraud was the next strongest (.130).Conversely, Votes influenced by ethnic sentiments and religious sentiments had the least Beta values (0.65 and 0.67 respectively), indicating that they made least of contributions.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND FINDINGS
The most significant finding of this study is that elections in Nigeria do not reflect the norms of democracy but reflect the realities of manipulations of the electoral process and outcome to favour those who subscribe to anti-democratic tendencies such as intimidation, vote buying, violence and the use of security to undermine the will of the people.
The implication of this result shows that election outcomes, particularly for primary elections, are the result of a combination of acts of demagoguery.However, the degree of influence is highest in cases where inducements or bribes were complemented by violence or threats to voters or where violence/threats to voters were complemented by inducements.
Also, the study highlights the fact that religion and ethnicity are not as crucial in determining who wins or loses election in Nigeria.As important as religion and ethnicity are in analyzing every aspect Nigeria, they do not, in the final analysis, determine the votes of candidates.
The result and findings of this study further explains why the "power of incumbency" is strongest in determining who wins elections in Nigeria.Thus, because the candidate(s) in power has (have) access to more resources and the paraphernalia of office, they tend to have more of the means to engaging in intimidation of opponents and voters, use of the security agencies to undermine democratic norms, buy votes, coerce and undermine voters and election officers to do their biddings, and enforce their will against the will of the majority (people).
Finally, the study shows what accounts for the non-participation of Nigerians of good character who may be willing to engage in governance through electoral contest but shy away from doing so.The high financial cost of participating in democracy in Nigeria coupled with the crude demagoguery manifesting through intimidation, violence, assassinations, bribery, and all sorts of manipulations associated with the Nigerian Democracy have made democracy a risky venture only suitable for Machiavellian politicians who are willing to sacrifice decency and virtue in the search for political power.This is so much the case because political power is the easiest and surest means of becoming wealthy and influential in Nigeria (ANIMASAWUN, 2013;BABANAWA, 2013;OFEMUN, 2010;SULEIMAN, 2010;SIMBINE, 2004).

CONCLUSION
The goal of this study was to examine whether the practice of democracy in Nigeria reflected internationally acceptable democratic norms.To achieve this goal, the researchers surveyed delegates for the 2015 governorship and presidential primary elections in Nigeria.The result results showed clear contradictions between democratic principle (ideal norm) and democratic practice (real or manifest norm)!This study has shown that in Nigeria's democracy, the political elites and electorates pay lip service to the principles and values of democracy and consider the antidemocratic practices such as bribery, violence, intimidation of voters and election fraud as part of democratic politics.Consequently, leaders that emerge from Nigeria's democratic politics are not always the choice of the people, which explains why they are not accountable to the people.

Figure 1 -
Figure 1 -Map of Nigeria showing the six geo-political zones

Table 1 -
Geopolitical Zones and the Randomly Selected State from Each Zone

Table 2 -
Gender Distribution of Respondents

Table 3 -
Age Distribution of Respondents

Table 4 -
Distribution of Respondents by Religion

Table 5 -
Distribution of Respondents by Marital Status

Table 6 -
Distribution of Respondents by Educational Background

Table 7 -
Distribution of Respondents by Occupation

Table 8 -
Distribution of Respondents by Political Party