INEC AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC: THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN PERSPECTIVE

INEC AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC:  THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN PERSPECTIVE
 
ABSTRACT
Prior to the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, INEC had conducted four quadrennial general elections from 1999-2011; and in a comparative study of 12 major steps in the election administration process, it was established that voter registration and campaign regulation were the weakest links in the series of activities involved in the election administration process. This paper examines these two key steps (voter registration and campaign regulation) in the 2015 electoral process vis-à-vis the 1999-2011 election administration process with a view to understanding the trajectory of election administration in Nigeria and the role INEC is playing in the consolidation of democracy in the country. Following the identification of a conceptual and theoretical context for understanding the election administration process, the paper demonstrates that while the continuous voter registration exercise for the 2015 general elections recorded remarkable improvements from INEC‘s past experiences, campaign regulation continues to be a highly problematic aspect of the country‘s election administration process.