SECURITY CHALLENGES AND ELECTION ADMINISTRATION IN NIGERIA'S FOURTH REPUBLIC

Ebenezer Oluwole Oni^1*Olumuyiwa Temitope Faluyi²Leo Otimeyin Asumu¹Adewale A Olutola²

• ¹Bowen University, Iwo, Nigeria
• ²Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

Achieving meaningful development and success in any government endeavour will remain elusive without a robust and well-planned security architecture. Conducting credible, free and fair elections, guaranteeing the protection of election management officials and election materials, creating an enabling atmosphere for the electorate to cast their votes and ensuring that their votes count, are all possible within the framework of a safe and secured electoral environment.Observations have shown that security challenges including banditry, kidnapping, terrorism and the unprofessional conduct of security agencies in election matters in contemporary Nigeria are taking their tolls on the electoral process thus causing systematic disenfranchisement of the electorate, voter apathy, election manipulation, assaulting of election observers and destruction of their monitoring gadgets as well as the outright burning down of electoral management offices across the nation. It is against the foregoing that this article examines the implication of security challenges on election administration in Nigeria's Fourth Republic that commenced in 1999.Anchored on state fragility theory, the study utilizsed qualitative research method with data gathered from secondary sources including books, journal articles, official government and nongovernmental organisations' documents, newspapers and internet materials while data were analysed using content analysis. From its findings, the studyIt argueds that the underperformance of the election management body in Nigeria is compounded bycan be rooted in the challenges of insecurity facing the nation including kidnapping, banditry and terrorism and exacerbated by. This is corroborated with the ineffectiveness of security agencies and their officials in addressing election insecurity in the country. and their capacity to ensure security in the electoral process.Anchored on state fragility theory, the study utilised qualitative research methods with data gathered from secondary sources including books, journal articles, official government and nongovernmental organisations' documents, newspapers and internet materials while data is analysed with the usge of content analysis. The article concludeds that a security unit be established within Nigeria's election management structure to allow for long-term inclusive security mapping and planning as each election cycle unfolds.