Pre-election Atmosphere and Challenges of Post Election Peace Building: the 2015 General Election in
Authors:
ADEWUMI Eyitayo
Publication Type: Journal article
Journal:
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Abstract
The abuse of democracy is not new to the Nigerian political space, leading to different political disputes or violence before, during and after elections. However, successful peace building is sine qua-non to post-election stability in any nation. Does pre-election political atmosphere influence the process of reconciliation among warring political parties in Africa? This question is born out of the realization of rancorous relationship in post-election peace building in nations such as Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Chad, and Egypt among others. This motivates the paper to examine the pre-election atmosphere and peace building with specific reference to 2015 general elections in Nigeria. The assumption is that the ideology plays very little role in electioneering campaign while money, religious and ethnic coloration dominate campaign strategies, as the adoption of foul languages overheat the polity. This paper is descriptive in nature and materials were sourced from secondary sources.
The study found that pre-election relationship influences the ease of reconciliation after elections. The study recommends that campaign should be ideologically based, while a view of making post-election peace building relatively easy.