Electoral Violence and 2015 General Elections in Nigeria
The Nigerian state is not alien to electoral violence which can be traced as far back as the pre independence elections. Contestants in Nigeria can go to any length to rig and win elections even if it means to break the states monopoly of violence to deploy terror to win elections. At the just concluded 2015 general elections in Nigeria, the South South part of Nigeria witnessed different levels of mayhem and the destruction of lives and property. On the other hand the Northern and South Western states witnessed minimal electoral violence unlike previous years where violence was more in the North. To this end it is the aim of this paper to highlight how electoral violence was reduced during the 2015 general elections. This paper adopted the use of secondary data in the analysis of the research. However this paper concluded that the electorates in the Northern part of Nigeria and the South West aligned to the All Progressives Congress political party (APC) the opposition party which eased tensions but in the South South violence broke out as a result of an attempt by the opposition party to unseat the ruling party Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). This paper recommends that continuous voter education should be increased in order to educate people on the ills of electoral violence. Also stiffer penalties should be handed down on the agents and accessories of electoral violence so as to deter others from deploying violence in future elections in Nigeria.
