CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
Elections have not only become an instrument for the demise of authoritarianism or a transition to democracy but the credibility of  electoral  process has equally  become  the  instrument for determining the integrity and legitimacy of a democratic regime. Credible election is the general acceptance of its conduct as free and fair by citizens and international community. It  means  one  thing  to  conduct  an  election  and  make  a  transition  to  democracy  or  even  conduct regular elections for years  after  transition.  It  also means another thing to have credible election that is generally accepted as free and fair by  citizens  and  international  community.  Acceptability  of  election results  by  stakeholders  would  therefore  increases  the  chances  of  consolidation  of  democracy.
Democracy is the system of government that promotes the participation of the masses in government and the accountability of elected representatives to the electorate. The representatives are public office holders who are voted into office by the people through an electoral process; their principal duty being to promote the interest of the electorate in the government.
Election on the other hand is the life-wire of democracy. It is the fulcrum around which democracy revolves. According to Osumah and Aghemelo (2010),“election is a process through which the people choose their leaders and indicate their policies and program preference and consequently invest a government with authority to rule.”“It is the procedure through which qualified adult voters elect their politically preferred representatives to parliament legislature of a county (or any other public positions) for the purpose of framing and running the government of the country, Ozor (2010).” The trust in this mechanism is that it allows the people to determine who and who should wield political power viz-a-viz their various interest by providing the ballot as an outlet for the expression of voter preference based on their judgement about the integrity of candidates and reliability of candidate’s party manifesto.
In Nigeria’s fourth republic the crisis of democratization has been anchored upon the challenges of election malpractice. Aside from the longer years of colonial domination and post-independence military expedition that ended with the fourth republic, elections in the country has been inundated with spiraling malpractices in the electoral process as confirmed by domestic and external election monitoring bodies during the elections of the fourth republic.The phenomenon of election malpractice has been a clog in the wheels of democratization in the country even as the country staggers with many other challenges such as corruption, factionalism, insurgency, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy and ethno-religious disharmony. It is upon this premise that this study seeks to examine electoral malpractice and democratic consolidation using the fourth republic as case study
1.2 Statement of the problem
After a decade and half of democratic experiment yet, efforts towards democratic consolidation in Nigeria’s fourth republic have been facing the challenges electoral malpractices. The crisis of democratic consolidation as a result of the challenges of electoral malpractices manifest in form of corruption, insecurity and weak democratic institutions. The significance of democratic consolidation in Nigeria like in other new democracies depends largely on the conduct of free, fair and credible election. A constant goal in the fourth republic governments of Nigeria beginning from 1999 has been the consolidation of the country’s democracy and democratic institutions in order to improve her socio-economic stature as much as her international image. However, this goal has met a range of nagging obstacles including corruption, factionalism, ethno-religious disharmony, insurgency, poverty and electoral malpractice. Paramount  of these obstacles is election malpractice which affects the very roots of democracy election.In response to this, this study aims at investigating how these factors contribute to the disease of electoral malpractice in Nigeria’s fourth republic as it affects the country’s democracy.