Dwindling Voters’ Turnout and Citizenship Participation: A Political Market Orientation Analysis of Nigeria’s 2015 and 2019 Presidential Elections

The most critical elements of democracy are competition and regular elections. While higher voter turnout in an election is seen as a vital sign of democratic development, lower turnout is usually linked with voter apathy and mistrust of the electoral process. Despite having the highest population in West Africa, Nigeria has the lowest voter turnout rate in the region. More importantly, there is a gradual decline in voter turnout in Nigeria; from 52% in 1999 to 35.6% in 2019. This study was premise on the idea that voter turnout is the primary sign of citizenship participation in a participatory democracy. Hence, from a political market orientation perspective, the study investigated factors limiting voters’ turnout and citizenship participation in elections. In addition to observing the process leading to the 2015 and 2019 general elections and post-election events, 350 eligible Nigerian voters were purposively selected and surveyed to ascertain their awareness, attitude, and reactions to the 2015 and 2019 presidential election campaigns in Nigeria. The study affirms that lack of trust in the electoral process, electoral violence and insecurity, vote rigging and electoral fraud, campaign messaging, registration/voting process, poverty and unemployment, and attitude of the politicians negatively impact voter turnout in Nigeria. However, as against the resource model’s basic assumption, that higher levels of socioeconomic status and education are strongly linked to higher voter turnout, voter apathy in Nigeria is higher among public/civil servants and the elites, while people in the lower level of socioeconomic status and education turn out more to vote on election days.