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JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS JOURNAL OF JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS Special Issue: Nigeria’s 2007 General Elections Vol 6 No 2 Oct 2007 Vol Volume 6 Number 2 October 2007 VOLUME 6 NO 1 1 Journal of African Elections Special Issue: Nigeria’s 2007 General Elections GUEST EDITOR Emmanuel O Ojo ARTICLES BY Emmanuel O Ojo E Remi Aiyede Isaac Olawale Albert Uno Ijim-Agbor Said Adejumo and Michael Kehinde N Olufemi Mimiko J Shola Omotola Osisioma B C Nwolise N D Danjibo and Abubakar Oladeji P F Adebayo and J Shola Omotola Peter Vale Volume 6 Number 2 October 2007 1 2 JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS Published by EISA 14 Park Road, Richmond Johannesburg South Africa P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Tel: +27 011 482 5495 Fax: +27 011 482 6163 e-mail: [email protected] ©EISA 2007 ISSN: 1609-4700 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher Copy editor: Pat Tucker Printed by: Global Print, Johannesburg Cover photograph: Reproduced with the permission of the HAMILL GALLERY OF AFRICAN ART, BOSTON, MA, USA www.eisa.org.za VOLUME 6 NO 1 3 EDITORS Denis Kadima, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, Johannesburg Khabele Matlosa, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, Johannesburg EDITORIAL BOARD Tessy Bakary, Office of the Prime Minister, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire David Caroll, Democracy Program, The Carter Center, Atlanta Jørgen Elklit, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark Amanda Gouws, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch Abdalla Hamdok, International Institute for Democracy Assistance, Pretoria Sean Jacobs, New York University, Brooklyn, NY Claude Kabemba, Southern Africa Resource Watch, Johannesburg Peter Kagwanja, International Crisis Group, Southern Africa Project, Pretoria Peter Katjavivi, Ambassador of Namibia to Berlin Abdul Rahman Lamin, Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Tom Lodge, Department Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick Robin Ludwig, UN Dialogue with the Global South, New York Robert Mattes, Department of Political Science, University of Cape Town Yvonne Muthien, Corporate Affairs, MTN South Africa Eghosa Osaghae, Igbinedion University, Okada, Nigeria David Pottie, The Carter Center, Atlanta Ben Reilly, Director, Centre for Democratic Institutions, The Australian National University, Canberra Lloyd Sachikonye, Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe, Harare Jeremy Seekings, Sociology Department, University of Cape Town Timothy Sisk, Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, Colorado Gloria Somolekae, Programme Director, W K Kellogg Foundation, Pretoria and EISA Board member Roger Southall, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria The Journal of African Elections is an interdisciplinary biannual publication of research and writing in the human sciences, which seeks to promote a scholarly understanding of developments and change in Africa. Responsibility for opinions expressed and for the accuracy of facts published in papers, research notes, review articles and book reviews rests solely with the individual authors or reviewers. Contributions are referred to specialist readers for consideration, but the Editor is responsible for the final selection of the contents of the Journal. Editorial correspondence, including manuscripts for submission and books for review, should be sent to: The Editor, Journal of African Elections EISA: P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006, South Africa Business correspondence, including orders and remittances, subscription queries, advertisements, back numbers and offprints, should be addressed to: The Publisher, Journal of African Elections EISA: P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa 4 JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS CONTENTS Editorial Emmanuel O Ojo ................................................................................................................................. 1 Elections: An Exploration of Theoretical Postulations Emmanuel O Ojo ................................................................................................................................. 4 Nigeria’s 2007 General Elections and Succession Crisis: Implications for the Nascent Democracy Emmanuel O Ojo ............................................................................................................................... 14 Electoral Laws and the 2007 General Elections in Nigeria E Remi Aiyede .................................................................................................................................... 33 A Review of the Campaign Strategies Isaac Olawale Albert.......................................................................................................................... 55 Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) As An (Im)Partial Umpire in the Conduct of the 2007 Elections Uno Ijim-Agbor ................................................................................................................................. 79 Building Democracy without Democrats? Political Parties and Threats of Democratic Reversal in Nigeria Said Adejumo and Michael Kehinde ................................................................................................. 95 Party Formation and Electoral Context in Nigeria: Labour Party and the 2007 Election in Ondo State N Olufemi Mimiko ........................................................................................................................... 114 Godfathers and the 2007 Nigeria General Elections J Shola Omotola .............................................................................................................................. 134 Electoral Violence and Nigeria’s 2007 Elections Osisioma B C Nwolise ..................................................................................................................... 155 Vote Buying in Nigerian Elections: An Assessment of the 2007 General Elections N D Danjibo and Abubakar Oladeji ................................................................................................ 180 Public Perception of the 2007 Nigeria’s General Elections P F Adebayo and J Shola Omotola ................................................................................................. 201 Appendices ...................................................................................................................................... 217 Professor John Barratt: A Tribute Peter Vale ........................................................................................................................................ 220 Reviews ........................................................................................................................................... 225 Contents of Previous Issues ............................................................................................................. 230 Notes for Contributors ..................................................................................................................... 242 VOLUME 6 NO 2 1 EDITORIAL On 14 and 21 April 2007 Nigerians went to the polls to elect their leaders. The first election was for governors and members of the state houses of assembly, the second, for the president and members of the National Assembly. The elections, the central institution of democratic representative government, were vital in a nascent democracy like Nigeria. Why? Because in a democracy the authority of the government derives solely from the consent of the governed. The principal mechanism for translating that consent into governmental authority is the conduct of free and fair elections at regular intervals. Nigeria’s 2007 general elections were remarkable in a number of ways. First, under President Olusegun Obasanjo, the country had had eight tumultuous years of democracy – the longest period since Nigeria gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960. The second significant factor was that for the first time in the country’s history power was being transferred from one civilian government to another. It would have been even more significant if it were being transferred from the ruling party to the opposition. All modern democracies hold elections, but not all elections are democratic. And that is what makes the difference and is why this special issue of the Journal of African Elections, focusing on the 2007 general elections, is important, investigating, as it does, just how democratic the elections were. The papers are carefully crafted by Nigerian scholars who followed the elections closely and as dispassionately as possible. The issue is introduced with Ojo’s theoretical postulations on elections, which serve as the theoretical framework. The hub of the theoretical perspective is a cue from Jeane Kirkpatrick, scholar and former US Ambassador to the United Nations, who believes that ‘democratic elections are not merely symbolic … They are competitive, periodic, inclusive, definitive elections in which the chief decision- makers in a government are selected by citizens who enjoy broad freedom to criticize government, to publish their criticism and to present alternative.’ Ojo’s paper highlights the crucial criteria for an election to achieve its democratic purpose. Ojo’s lead empirical paper analyses the elections in relation to the problem