Election Postponement and the Future of Democracy in Nigeria

Election remains the most peaceful means of instituting and institutionalizing democratic government. Liberal democratic theorists argue on the primacy of election as an essential element of democracy. Since the commencement of the Fourth Republic, Nigeria had conducted six successive elections to deepen democratic rule. However, election postponement is fast becoming a recurring decimal in the political landscape. Taken 2019 General election as a unit of analysis, this paper examined the implication of election postponement on the future of democracy in Nigeria. Data were generated from secondary sources, including Textbooks, Journals and Internet, to provide information on the concept of Democracy and 2019 elections. These were subjected to descriptive and content analysis. 2019 Election postponement had cost Nigeria political, economic and social fortunes. It had undermined the integrity of the electoral process resulting in voter apathy. Nigeria lost billions of naira as a result of shutdown of businesses. It resulted in additional financial burden in the conduct of the election. The paper recommends that Nigeria’s Electoral Management body needs to be re-engineered to be able to cope with responsibility of conducting election on schedule. Private institutions should be strategically employed to engage in election logistics such as handling of sensitive materials and on-time delivery of these materials. Also, there is need to give a thoughtful consideration to electronic voting, that should take care of the logistics problem of conducting election in Nigeria.