Achieving good governance through credible elections in Nigeria

Abstract

Credible elections are prerequisite for the foundation and preservation of democratic ethos in any civilized society. This is because, election serves as legitimate and orderly means of transferring political power from one government to the other. However, in most developing countries in the world Nigeria inclusive, to achieve undisputable legitimacy vis-à-vis smooth transferring of political power has become a mirage as most of the elections conducted in Nigeria were characterized by massive rigging, irregularities and manipulations, occasioned by political actors in order to wrestle power at all cost, denies the electorates the opportunity to choose the candidates of their choice. Given the above background, this paper examines the intercourse between good governance and credible elections in Nigeria. The paper adopts theory of structural functionalism to explain the scenario. While the study employs secondary sources of data collection in explaining the topic of discourse. The study discovered that good governance cannot be achieved in the absence of credible elections. The paper therefore recommends that for elections to be free, fair and credible in Nigeria political actors and stakeholders must live up to expectation by adhering to the rule of the game while the electoral umpire must be genuinely independent.