BY ; OLAPADE GBOLAHAN
One of the major highlight of the just concluded 2019 general elections was the issue of apathy on the path of voters. It has become an ever growing concern in the nation as we have less people voting compared to the actual number that actually registered.
All over the country ,in the general elections low voters turnout was recorded as INEC reported 34% turnout in the elections which was the lowest recorded since the new democracy was ushered in(1999).
According to INEC ,there were over 84m registered voters ,while 72.7 collected their PVC`s ,11.2m failed to collect theirs, this shows the level of voter apathy in the just concluded general elections 34%voters out of the initial 84m that registered is a really low number and an alarming sign to the falling of democracy in Nigeria.
Abia,Ebonyi,Enugu States had the lowest turnout of voters in the elections while surprisingly Borno and Yobe had the highest numbers .
The numbers are indeed rapidly decreasing , In comparison to the 2015 general elections which the turnout was at 43%. Also judging by the fact that the turnout for the 1999 elections was 70%, it is more than an opinion that political/voter apathy is rapidly growing and it is a danger to democracy . A quick response is required before the 2023 general elections so as to ensure a proper democratic government in the country who is accountable to the people because they voted him into government .
Meanwhile ,there are various factors responsible for the voter apathy going on in Nigeria .These include the popular belief or mentality that their votes wouldn’t count, many Nigerians strongly belief whether they vote or not, it wouldn’t affect the outcome of the elections, so they rather not participate.
Also the issue of insecurity remains a factor responsible for voters apathy , potential voters are afraid of going out to vote on election day due to the continued political violence in Nigeria which increases on election days. Fear of being attacked by political thugs on election days also causes voter apathy.
I believe that the major factor responsible for voters apathy at the 2019 general elections was the postponement by INEC, the presidential and national assembly elections slated to hold on 16th of February was postponed by INEC till 23rd of February and the House of Assembly and Governorship polls slated for 2nd of March were moved to 9th of March and INEC gave reasons of logistics and operational problems for the rescheduling. This made a lot of people lose interest in the elections as some people claimed the elections was probably shifted to afford enough time for preparations of the ruling party to rig the elections while people who had earlier travelled down to their polling venues on the 16th couldn’t afford to come back the following week.
We can say the outcome of the 2019 general election was decided by a very few number of Nigerians.
