Nebeife Chigozie Joseph, Samuila Tibwa Abwage

Keywords: Consolidation, Credible electoral process, Democracy, Elections, Political culture

Abstract

Since the return of democracy in Ghana and Nigeria in 1992 and 1999
respectively, the task of consolidating democracy has continued to pose
difficulties. Despite sharing a similar colonial history and transitioning to
multi-party democracy around the same period, these two West African
nations present a stark contrast in their democratic trajectories. While
Ghana has been lauded for its credible electoral process and peaceful transfers of power, Nigeria has struggled with electoral violence,
widespread fraud, and persistent public distrust in its electoral process.
This paper therefore, examines the critical link between political culture
and credible electoral processes by x-raying the implications for democratic consolidation in Nigeria and Ghana. It posits that Ghana seems to have experienced credible electoral processes more than Nigeria due to
the inherent positive political culture and thus tend to have achieved
democratic consolidation through periodic elections. Utilizing the Political
Culture theory, comparative research design, qualitative method of data
collection and qualitative descriptive analysis, the study argues that these
divergent paths are largely due to fundamental differences in their
respective political cultures. While both Nigeria and Ghana face challenges
from institutional integrity, civil society engagement, ethno-religious divisions, and clientelism, these factors more profoundly undermine electoral credibility and democracy in Nigeria due to a deeper lack of public trust, more intense political polarization, and the pervasive nature of clientelistic practices. Thus, the paper concludes that the influence of political culture on electoral process seems to have accounted for the differences in democratic consolidation in Nigeria and Ghana. The paper therefore recommends a value re-orientation to inculcate a value-laden political culture capable of enhancing electoral process in Nigeria as in Ghana. This means there is need to replace incumbency supremacy in Nigeria with a political culture of high value system and supremacy of the will of the people.

Author Biography

Nebeife Chigozie Joseph, Samuila Tibwa Abwage

Political Science Department, Federal University Wukari, Taraba State-Nigeria.

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

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