From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), a civil society organisation, has warned of a potential election blackout in 2027 unless urgent steps are taken to reverse the 26 per cent voter turnout recorded in the 2023 general elections.
Dr Iroro Izu, an election expert and senior lecturer at Nile University, Abuja, spoke at a Centre LSD event on Tuesday in Abuja. He urged Nigeria to emulate countries like Rwanda, Kenya, The Gambia, and Ghana, which boast high voter turnout. Addressing a one-day dialogue with frontline CSOs and media, Izu noted a steady decline in voter participation, describing it as voter burnout rather than turnout.
He said, “Voter burnout calculates the degree of discomfort, inconvenience, uncertainty and irresponsibility suffered by voters on election day due to the unusually long-drawn hours the voters spend or wait to vote, mainly because of delay in voting, inefficiency of election devices, incapability and corruptibility of election workers, rude activities of thugs, hooligans, touts, corrupt security operatives, colluding communities and logistical breakdown.
“Voter burnout deals with the harshness, callousness, rudeness and inhumanity of the voting ecology.”
Izu called for better governance to improve living conditions, arguing that successive government failures lead voters to believe their votes are meaningless.
“When governance fails, it means that government has failed, and when this trend becomes successive, making all previous governments resemble one another in failure, the voters will develop this complex that their votes do not translate to anything that brings meaning to their everyday lives,” he said.
He highlighted long waits at polling centres due to delayed election materials, workers, and security. To address this, he proposed doubling polling units for accessibility, ensuring inclusivity, and conducting all elections on a single day to reduce voter fatigue.
“Massive voter education and sensitisation should be carried out to orientate the voters on the importance of coming out to vote and that their votes will count,” he added.
Monday Osasah, Executive Director of Centre LSD, opened the event by stressing that voting is a core democratic right. “Ultimate authority resides with the people, who delegate their power to elected representatives through the electoral process,” he said.
However, he lamented, “The history of elections in Nigeria, from the colonial period to the present, reveals a troubling trend: citizens are often denied the effective exercise of their voting rights, and their votes frequently fail to influence the final electoral outcomes. In numerous cases, candidates have been declared winners without reflecting the true will of the electorate. The first election was held in Nigeria in 1923.”
Osasah listed issues from the 2023 elections, including weak voter education, poor communication by electoral bodies, distrust in the process, problems with voter registration, PVC collection, polling logistics, violence, insecurity, disenfranchisement, gender disparities, and under-representation of marginalised groups.