Election Management And Administration In Nigeria: Issues, Challenges And Remedies

Abstract

Election management and administration in Nigeria has always generated a lot of challenges and will always generate these challenges due to the sensitive and precarious nature of elections in the country, and the “do or die” attitude of the political actors, who are bent on winning elections at any cost. This becomes more important as Nigeria prepares for another round of general elections in 2023. It becomes more strategic because, election is the most peaceful process of change of government or regime the world over. This process becomes even more tense with the involvement of the political actors in the process of these elections. Thus, making the management of election a very difficult task for the election manager, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The aim of this paper is to examine the challenges of election management in Nigeria, with a view of proffering solutions to these challenges. The study is basically descriptive in nature and will make use of secondary data. The key recommendations of the study are that adequate security must be provided by the Federal, State and Local governments for the election managers, the electorate and the election materials. Also, the election manager, INEC must engage the services of professional body such as the National Political Science Association (NPSA) in handling elections in Nigeria in order to have a free, fair, credible and transparent elections in Nigeria.