Nigeria in Search of a Credible Electoral Administration

Abstract Recent elections in Nigeria have produced conflicting and ambiguous assessments regarding the quality, integrity and credibility of the country’s electoral governance. On one hand, widespread domestic and international criticisms of the farcical 2007 elections provoked remarkable constitutional, statutory, and administrative proposals, programmes, and policies for reforming Nigeria’s electoral processes. Those reforms led to electoral cycles that observers adjudged to be comparatively competitive, broadly acceptable, and generally indicative of a shift away from the country’s extended history of electoral maladministration, corruption, and chicanery. On the other hand, credible reports emphasize the persistence of significant levels of fraud, violence, and disorganization in Nigerian elections. This chapter shows that these contradictory outcomes and dual perspectives are consistent with the partial and incomplete nature of recent electoral reforms in Nigeria. Those reforms have extended the autonomy of the country’s election management commission, without guaranteeing the agency’s effective political insulation or addressing broader and deeper weaknesses in the country’s electoral landscape. Nigeria resembles a classic hybrid regime with increasingly competitive electoral contests that, however, continue to witness undemocratic levels of manipulation, corruption, and violence. More extensive reforms, along the lines proposed by a major official electoral reform committee, would have produced more substantial improvements in electoral integrity and quality.