Page 1 of 12
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 10, No. 5
Publication Date: May 25, 2023
DOI:10.14738/assrj.105.14680.
Abdullahi, M., & Arabo, U. A. (2023) Voter Apathy in Nigeria as Political Protest: A Critical Overview of People’s Participation in
Elections in Nigeria. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).198-209.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Voter Apathy in Nigeria as Political Protest: A Critical Overview of
People’s Participation in Elections in Nigeria
Muhammad Abdullahi
Department of Political Science
Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State
Umar Abubakar Arabo
Research Development Office
Federal University Gusau
ABSTRACT
This study explained that since the return to civil rule in 1999 after decades of
military interregnum, Nigeria was involved in series of elections in the country. It
has been observed that in each of these elections low turnout of voters used to be
recorded. Several efforts were made with a view to assuage this malaise but, the
citizens’ full participations always fell below expectations. The paper uses
qualitative method which involves key informant interview as well as Aristotle’s
theory of politics and thus argues that, until the elected officials in Nigeria recourse
to fulfilling their campaign promises, and elections superintendents live up to
expectation by making the electorates votes count during elections, above all,
entrenchment of good governance, the menace of voter apathy will continue to be
experienced in the Nigeria’s political space.
Keywords: Voter Apathy, Political Participation, Political Protest
INTRODUCTION
Voter apathy has been considered as one of the major brick walls for credible elections in
Nigeria. The work has tried to thoroughly view in to the general none or poor participation of
people during elections in Nigeria. However, apart from the 1999 and the 2015 elections, most
of the subsequent elections have, to some greater extent recorded poor turnout of voters. This
has happened in spite of the relentless efforts by almost all the election stakeholders in the
country. By voter apathy, we simply mean the passive or low turnout of people during elections
processes in the state. These elections processes ranges from involvement of people in the
party-politics, voter’s card registration and collection, elections campaigns and the actual
voting on the voting days.
However, since 1999 when the country returned to the civilian/democratic governance, focus
was made by each government towards general as well as mass participation of people in the
elections processes in the country; these were done through the general sensitization of public
by INEC, public lectures and rallies by some civil society organizations and some religious
bodies. Despite these huge efforts significant number of people do not fully participate in the
election’s activities during electioneering seasons. This work therefore, explained that, there is
Page 2 of 12
199
Abdullahi, M., & Arabo, U. A. (2023) Voter Apathy in Nigeria as Political Protest: A Critical Overview of People’s Participation in Elections in Nigeria.
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).198-209.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.105.14680
the need for all the elections stakeholders in the country both on the side of the government
and the non-state actors to review the policy process and implementation processes with a
view to avoiding as well as addressing those internal and external fit-falls that brought about
the short-comings and recurrent prevalence of voter apathy in Zamfara State.
CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION
Voter Apathy
In simply tone denotes the lack of interest among voters in the election activities of their
country, which can be due some reasons. It also involves the issue of low turnout by citizens
during elections. It also signifies being indifference by the citizens towards political activities
in the country.
Political Protest
Can be explained as a public expression in the form of objection, disapproval or dissent by
person (s) against an idea or action, typically a political one. This objection can either be active
in the form of people or groups marching or walking together through the streets, or passive in
the form of people being elusive, inactive towards certain dissatisfy political activities.
Political Participation
Can be explained as activities usually undertaken by people to express their opinions on how
they were governed and try to take part in the process of shaping the decision that affect them.
The participation can usually be either active or passive.
Problem Statement:
The phenomenon of voter apathy has emerged as one of the problems being managed by the
Nigerian state in order to improve citizen’s mass participations during elections in the country.
Since the return to civil in 1999 after decades of military interregnum, Nigeria was involved in
series of elections in the country. It has been observed that in each of these elections low
turnout of voters used to be recorded. Several efforts were made with a view to assuage this
malaise but, the citizen’s full participations always fell below expectations. This study
therefore, aims to unravel those salient issues perceived to be the bases behind the continuous
and unabated low turnout of voters during general elections in Nigeria.
In effect, this menace had, posed a serious election as well as development challenges to Nigeria
at large. The most disturbing trends in spite of the various governments’ strategies, measures
and interventions to curb this menace, the apathy seems ceaseless and of course, attempts at
mitigating the problem became more cumbersome for the state, the elections stakeholders and
the country at large. For instance, the country had, on many occasions during elections period
introduces varieties of programs towards assuaging and enlightening people against voter
apathy among them are conducting and performing dramas and jingles on the Television and
Radios houses, preaching in Mosques, Churches and other social gatherings but, still many
people still exhibit nonchalant attitude towards elections within the states capitals as well as
the country at large.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Voter apathy simply denotes the lack of interest towards elections processes in a given political
system. It further signifies the indifference of some individual(s) to fully participate in political
Page 3 of 12
200
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 10, Issue 5, May-2023
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
activities. It has been observed that the cause of voter apathy stemmed from the general feeling
of alienation and or voter fatigue. By alienation this entails the sense that voters feels like the
political system does not work for them and any attempt to influence it end of being a fruitless
exercise. Democracy has been generally extolled about the choice that the people make,
engendering the government of the people for the people and by the people. The bedrock of this
definition is that, it was people that generally gave impetus to democracy. In simple tone, one
cannot have democracy without the people’s participation. In essence, therefore, it was the
people that usually set democracy in motion. However, in Nigeria, people seem to be bereft of
the democratic power they held.
According to Ogunbiyi (2022), the word apathy is a deriving word from Greek meaning ‘’
without feelings’’. He further explained that ‘’ the apathetic are alive but without feelings, so
they are not living. Put it mildly they are the living dead’’. Based on this, he asserts that voter
apathy simply denotes the insensitivity of the people towards the electoral process, particularly
voting. Ogunbiyi (2022) citing an instance, based on the INEC 2011 statistics that only 35% of
the over, 70 million that registered actually voted in the 2011 general elections. This implies
that, over 65% of the registered voters did not vote. In the same vein, Ogunbiyi (2022) had
equally brought fore te recently concluded governorship election in Osun State where out of
the over 1,955,657 registered voters in the state, only a little over 800,000 turnouts on the
actual voting day. He further proffered that this growing trend has a grievous consequence on
the prospect of democratic development in the country. For instance, voter apathy to him,
ensure that the leaders who attain political powers through these few votes of the minority will
rule over the majority. Secondly, they do not get t the power through the mass votes; they tend
to espouse self-seeking agenda. Above all, it always tends to be a bit hypocritical for those who
did not turn out to vote to criticize those who were elected through the same process that they
shunned.
Abideen (2022) believes that the main reason for voter apathy in Nigeria was as a result of lack
of trust in the process and the fact that Nigerians do not always feel the effects of governance,
in spite of the high cost of conducting elections in Nigeria. He explained that political analyst
has argued that the cost of conducting elections in Nigeria will continue to rise, but the issue to
contend with, is that the voter turnout will continue to fall unless practical steps are taken to
address it.
At any rate, democracy has always been the world’s most accepted system of government.
Hence, the core to the practice of this system (democracy) surely, is the citizen’s participation
as well as involvement in the civic and political issues in the country. It is therefore arguable
that citizen’s involvement in their governance and decision-making process at all levels to be a
necessary tool and obligation to sustain and uphold a democracy in any given political system.
But sadly, this is not the case in Nigeria.
Akinyemi (2019) had argued that since its return to electoral democracy in 1999, Nigeria’s
elections has been marred and characterized by voter apathy. It is imperative to note that only
a fraction of percentage of the voting population that actually vote; which is an affront to the
idea of “majority rule” which also happened to be one of the basic tenets of democracy. His
argument was that, the consequence follows that instead of majority rule; there is “minority
rule” in Nigeria because in a population of almost 200 million, there were 82.3 million