The Impact of e-Democracy in Political Stability of Nigeria
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The history of the Nigerian electoral process has been hitherto characterized by violence stemming from disputes
in election outcomes. For instance, violence erupted across some states in Northern Nigeria when results indicated that a
candidate who was popular in that part of the country was losing the election leading to avoidable loss of lives. Beside, this
dispute in election outcome lingers for a long time in litigation at the electoral tribunals which distracts effective governance.
However, the increasing penetrating use of ICTs in Nigeria is evident in the electoral processes with consequent shift in the
behavior of actors in the democratic processes, thus changing the ways Nigerians react to election outcomes. This paper
examines the trend in the use ICT in the Nigerian political system and its impact on the stability of the polity. It assesses the
role of ICT in recent electoral processes and compares its impact on the outcome of the process in lieu of previous
experiences in the Nigeria. Furthermore, the paper also examines the challenges and risks of implementing e-Democracy in
Nigeria and its relationship to the economy in the light of the socio-economic situation of the country. The paper adopted
qualitative approach in data gathering and analysis. From the findings, the paper observed that e-democracy is largely
dependent on the level of ICT adoption, which is still at its lowest ebb in the country. It recognizes the challenges in the
provision of ICT infrastructure and argues that appropriate low-cost infrastructure applicable to the Nigerian condition can
be made available to implement e-democracy and thus arouse the interest of the populace in governance, increase the
number of voters, and enhance transparency, probity and accountability, and participation in governance as well as help
stabilize the nascent democracy
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science