POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REFORMS IN ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA
Abstract
This paper examined the political economy of electoral reforms in Nigeria through, a Marxist political economy lens, highlighting how oil-driven capitalism and elite patronage shape electoral processes. Despite reforms such as the Electoral Act 2022, which introduced BVAS and IReV, persistent issues, such as vote -buying, violence, and institutional weaknesses, reflect bourgeois control over democratic mechanisms. Using secondary sources, the study traces reforms from colonial times to 2023, revealing elections as tools for capitalist reproduction rather than popular empowerment. Findings show that reforms fail to address structural inequalities, with ethnic divisions masking class struggles. The study recommends state-funded campaign finance, mandatory electronic result transmission, an Electoral Offences Commission, and worker-led civic education to foster class consciousness and credible elections.
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Electoral reform, political economy, Marxism, vote-buying, NigeriaDownloads
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Copyright (c) 2025 Umearokwu Uchenna Chukwuemeka PhD , Musa Abdulkareem, MSc
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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