Ethno-religious Sentiment And Voting Behavior In Nigeria

Ethno-religious Sentiment And Voting Behavior In Nigeria

Chapter One

Background Of The Study

. Preface

race and religion are two miracle that can hardly be disassociated from a mortal being, while race gives humans the sense of belonging to a group which fosters solidarity and concinnity, Religion plays a vital part in mortal lives by connecting them to the spiritual and giving them stopgap of a better life on earth and after death( Conroy, 2013). The two miracle are important in a mortal being as there’s hardly an existent that does not belong to an ethnical group or practices one form of religion.

The two miracle though important can be veritably dangerous when taken to the extreme and brought to public life especially politics. Politics is an exertion that brings people together to relate with one another and give results to problems affecting their society, when race and Religion is brought into politics it leads to division grounded on novelettish passions and splits. As Horowitz( 2013) explains that race and religion arenon-evaluative variables and are ascriptive, more segmented, pilloried and rigid.

Ethno/ religious tendency has hindered the development of public parties, public individualities and popular culture. This is because ethnical and religious groups while contending for political positions could fluently manipulate them for concession and bargain which could fluently bring ethnical-focused conflict with dire consequences for popular stability and public survival( Branton, 2013).

In Nigeria, ethnical and religious politics, sentiments and splits had been nurtured since social period with new trends and confines taking place in the contemporary period( Nwachukwu, 2014). Political parties and campaigners are fluently perceived as representatives of a particular ethnical or religious group and voting pattern in Nigeria largely glasses the colorful splits in the country – North- South, Christian- Muslim, among others.

The dominant part of race in Nigerian popular and prejudiced politics and the struggle for political power has been reflected through the results of former choices from the First Republic to the lately concluded 2015 general choices. The first ever choices held in Nigeria( 1959 General choices) was characterized by political parties which were substantially offshoots of ethnical and religious individualities.

In the North there was the North Peoples Congress( NPC) which surfaced from the Northern Group Jamia mutani arewa arewa organzation, in the South there was the Action Group( AG) which surfaced from the Yoruba Group Agbe Omo Oduduwa and eventually in the East was The National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroon( NCNC) which was an ethnical group for the Igbos. The three political parties failed to bring about concinnity and borrow a public achromatism principle rather they abused on ethnical and religious factors to score political votes and win followers( Olukoshi, 2013).

therefore, ethno-indigenous splits have continued to remain a major determinant of electoral outgrowth and affiliated political issues with attendant counteraccusations for democratisation and nation structure in Nigeria. The study of ethno-indigenous splits and voting geste in the 2015 general choices is significant, not just for assaying political participation, but also for its implicit consequences for democratization and nation structure. It’s grounded on the above that this exploration intends to examine the impacts of Ethno-religious sentiments on advancing patterns in Nigeria, a case study of the 2015 General choices.

. Statement of the exploration problem

Nigeria has always been amulti-ethnic andmulti-religious State and the different ethno-religious sentiments has always been reflected in her choices, still in the 2015 choices, the effect was more striking. The results of the 2015 general choices easily revealed the transcendence of ethno-religious sentiments as determinants of voting geste and political participation across the country. From the presidential through gubernatorial, public and state assemblies ’ choices, applicants were largely chosen on the base of ethno- regious individualities. In the presidential election, the chairman and vice chairman handpick entered nearly 90 per cent of their votes on the base of ethno- regious identity. also, the peremptory chairman entered en masse votes from his ethno- regious zones.

In addition to being the most competitive election in Nigeria since independence, the 2015 general choices were held amid rising pressures on account of terror attacks by the Boko Haram Insurgent group. Ahead of the choices, there had been adding pressure between the north and the south due to what the northerners perceived as their ‘ misplaced occasion ’ to reclaim the administration and reverse the continued profitable marginalization of their region. All these factors aggravated the traditional ethnical, indigenous, and religious splits that have defined Nigerian politics since independence. It’s grounded on the below, that this exploration aims to examine Ethno-religious sentiment and voting pattern in Nigeria; a case study of 2015 general choices

. Exploration Questions

The following are questions the exploration seeks to answer

What’s the main cause of Ethno-religious sentiments in Nigeria?

b. How did Ethno- Religious Sentiment determine voting patterns in the 2015 general choices?

Was the credibility of the 2015 general election undermined by the novelettish voting patterns?

. Exploration Objects

The following are the objects of this study

To identify the main cause of ethno-religious sentiments in Nigeria.

To examine how Ethno-religious conflict determined voting patterns in the 2015 general choices.

To probe the credibility of the 2015 general election vis-a-vis novelettish voting patterns.

. Research Propositions

The following are the exploration propositions

Ethno-Religious politics is the major cause of Ethno- Religious sentiment in Nigeria

Ethno- Religious sentiments were responsible for the voting patterns in the 2015 general choices

novelettish voting patterns undermined the credibility of the 2015 general choices

. Significance of the study

This exploration studies Ethno- Religious sentiments and its goods on advancing patterns in the 2015 in Nigeria. This study thus will be significant in the following ways

originally, the exploration will discover the reasons for Ethno- Religious sentiment in Nigeria which will thus enable the government, and private association to take way to address the issue and foster public concinnity

Secondly, the exploration will also look at the goods if Ethno-religious sentiments on advancing patterns, in the 2015 choices, this will fill in the gaps in being literatures as there aren’t important literatures on this content.

Eventually, the exploration will add to the academia and serve as reference point to farther Experimenters who’ll want to probe issue pertaining to Ethno- Religious sentiments.

. Compass And Limitations

The exploration examines Ethno- Religious sentiments and its goods on advancing patterns in the 2015 general choices, the exploration is therefore centered on the 2015 general choices, the exploration will also be careful to use accoutrements that were published during this time period for a better conclusion.

The major limitations of the study will be time, finance and access to important sources of primary data. The exploration would have loved to solicit the former INEC Chairman as well as resident INEC Officers still this will pose as a delicate task owing to the academic position of the experimenter and the busy schedules of the personalities.

This limitations still will in no way hamper the trustability and validity of the design, as the experimenter will do all within her care to insure that the design is duly written and its finding duly articulated.

. Research Methodology

The methodology espoused for this exploration is quantitative which emphasizes on the use of numeric data and statistics to draw out its findings. The quantitative methodology is also used in situation where a general knowledge is demanded about a certain problem, the quantitative methodology tries to discover the magnitude, frequence and extent of the independent variable on the dependent variable. therefore this methodology will be espoused to discover the extent to which Ethno-religious sentiment( independent variable) goods Voting geste ( dependent). The quantitative methodology will guide the system of data collection, data analysis and system of slice.

system of Data Collection Data will be collected for this exploration from both primary and secondary sources

The primary source of data will be collected from the distribution of questionnaires to a population of choosers, INEC officers and politicians in Zaria LGA of Kaduna State. 200 questionnaires will be distributed to get vast opinions and views

The secondary source of data will be collected from the review of books, journals and academic accoutrements written on the subject matter

system of Data Analysis probabilities will be espoused for analysis of data, this helps in giving a precise answer to questions and also aids in easy analysis

system of Testing The simple arbitrary slice will be used for slice this is because it gives everyone the occasion to be named by barring bias.

. Proposed Theoretical Framework

Rational Choice proposition

Rational choice proposition was proffered by Gary Becker in 1992. The rational choice proposition of ethnical voting geste presuppositions that a namer tends to bounce for a party seeker who’s a member of the same ethnical group because of the advanced possibility that the seeker will keep his/ her political pledges to members of their own ethnical community, and because of the lower costs of communicating with a seeker of one’s own community, more effective representation of the community’s interests in the congress will probably affect( Janet et. al, 1993,p. 436). By extension, the same proposition can be used to hypothecate that a namer will probably bounce for a seeker with whom he she partake common religious beliefs.

Rational choice proposition stylish explains age long voting behavioural patterns in Nigeria. Just like during the independence period, ethno-religious confederations continue to reflect in voting geste of Nigerians

. Description of Terms

Ethno- Religion

Ethno- Religion is a combination of the word Ethnical and Religion. The word is primarily used to describe members of an ethnical group which are also interpreters of a religion. It’s also used to relate to a situation where maturity of individualities in an ethnical group practice a particular religion( Conroy, 2013).

Sentiment

Sentiment is a study, opinion or idea grounded on a feeling about a situation or a way of allowing about commodity which is grounded on sympathy, pity, ethnical or religious inclinations rather than grounded on data or reason( Ali, 2003).

Voting Behaviour

Voting geste is defined as a set of particular electoral conditioning, including participation in electoral juggernauts, turnout at the pates, and choosing for whom to bounce( Bratton, 2013).

. Chapterisation

The design shall be structured into five chapters. Chapter One shall deal the background of the study which is characterized by; preface, Statement of the Research problem, Research questions, and objects of the study, Research propositions, Significance of the study, compass and limitations of Research Methodology and Definition of crucial generalities. Chapter Two shall dwell on the review of Literature as well as Theoretical frame. Chapter Three shall contain the elaboration of Ethno- Religion sentiment in Nigerian body polity. Chapter Four, shall correspond of data donation, analysis and interpretation. Chapter Five, shall give the summary, conclusion and recommendations of the study.