Nigeria risks drifting into electoral authoritarianism unless urgent and deliberate measures are taken to strengthen the credibility of its elections, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Benue State, Professor Sam Egwu, has warned.
Speaking at a public forum in Makurdi, Prof. Egwu expressed deep concern over what he described as the declining quality of Nigeria’s electoral process, noting that while the country continues to conduct elections regularly, the fairness, transparency and integrity of those elections are increasingly under threat.
He explained that electoral authoritarianism emerges when a country maintains the rituals of elections but empties them of real democratic content, creating a system where citizens vote but incumbents cannot lose, institutions lack independence, and opposition parties operate on an uneven playing field.
Prof. Egwu pointed to several troubling trends: the weakening of internal party democracy, the monetisation of primaries, increasing voter apathy, the use of state institutions to influence outcomes, and the rising culture of misinformation around electoral processes. According to him, these factors collectively undermine public trust and push the country closer to a managed-democracy model where election results are predictable long before ballots are cast.
The REC warned that Nigeria cannot afford to treat these issues lightly, especially at a time when voter confidence is already fragile. He emphasised that democratic consolidation requires more than conducting polls every four years — it requires credible elections, impartial institutions, a level political field, and meaningful accountability mechanisms.
Egwu called for the strengthening of INEC’s operational independence, stricter enforcement of electoral laws, and renewed commitment from political parties to run transparent and inclusive primaries. He also urged security agencies to remain neutral during elections, noting that political interference in security deployment has become a major source of tension in recent contests.
Civil society groups, he said, must intensify voter education and monitoring efforts, while citizens should remain vigilant and demand accountability from political leaders and electoral bodies alike.
He cautioned that unless Nigeria confronts these challenges head-on, it risks sliding into a system where elections merely legitimise power rather than express the people’s will.
“The real danger,” Egwu noted, “is not the absence of elections, but the hollowing out of the democratic process until elections become a formality. Once that happens, reversing the damage becomes extremely difficult.”
His warning comes at a time when stakeholders across the country continue to debate the credibility of recent elections and the future of Nigeria’s democratic trajectory.