Written by Elaska Mark
Communications Associate
Can Nigeria hold a free election in a country at war with itself?
I remember the last election cycle. I was tracking and monitoring elections. But the conversations kept circling back to security “Will people even come out to vote?” “Is it safe to move between communities?” It struck me that, in too many places, elections are no longer just a civic exercise.
They are a risk calculation. That tension between participation and personal safety is at the heart of Nigeria’s democracy today. Nigeria isn’t formally at war, but it often feels like a country negotiating multiple conflicts at once. Armed insurgency in the North-East. Banditry and mass abductions across the North West. Farmer herder violence in the Middle Belt. Separatist tensions in the South East. Add to that a steady erosion of trust in institutions, and you begin to see the problem, elections don’t happen in isolation. They happen inside systems and those systems are under strain.
So when we ask whether Nigeria can hold free and fair elections, I think we need to ask ourselves what does “free” even mean in a context where fear shapes turnout?
Take voter participation. In the recent 2023 general elections, Out of the total 93.47 million registered voters, only 24.9 million persons voted. That figure alone should worry anyone who believes in representative democracy. But numbers don’t tell the full story. In some communities, low turnout isn’t apathy, it's caution. People stay home because they are unsure what might happen on the road to a polling unit, or at the unit itself. And then there’s access.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has made efforts to expand voter registration and deploy technology, but logistics remain uneven. In insecure areas, polling units are sometimes relocated or consolidated. On paper, that’s a practical decision. In reality, it can mean longer travel distances, unfamiliar environments, and increased exposure to risk. Each of those factors quietly reduces participation.
I’ve seen how this plays out in conversations with young people. There’s a growing awareness of governance issues budgeting, public procurement, service delivery but that awareness doesn’t always translate into electoral engagement. Not because people don’t care, but because the system doesn’t consistently reward participation. When elections don’t lead to visible improvements in daily life, the incentive to take risks for civic duty weakens.
None of this means elections in Nigeria are meaningless. Far from it. They still matter deeply. They remain one of the few structured opportunities for citizens to influence leadership at scale. But the conditions under which they are held matter just as much as the act itself.
Security, for instance, is not just about deploying more personnel on election day. It’s about whether citizens trust that the state can protect them before, during, and after voting. It’s about whether security actors are seen as neutral guarantors of the process, rather than participants in it. Without that trust, the presence of security can feel as intimidating as the threats it is meant to deter.
Then there is the question of credibility. Electoral technology like biometric accreditation has improved aspects of the process, reducing some forms of manipulation. But technology cannot compensate for deeper structural issues, opaque party primaries, weak internal democracy, and the persistent influence of money in politics. When candidates emerge through processes that lack transparency, the legitimacy of the entire election is already compromised before the first vote is cast.
The phrase “ballots or bullets” suggests a stark choice. In reality, Nigeria is navigating a blurred line between the two. Elections are still conducted, results are declared, governments are formed. But the environment in which all this happens is increasingly shaped by insecurity, distrust, and uneven state presence.
So can Nigeria hold a free election under these conditions?
It depends on how we define “free.” If it means simply the absence of overt coercion at the polling unit, then perhaps yes in parts of the country, on good days. But if it means that citizens can participate without fear, that their votes are counted and reflected in outcomes, and that the process strengthens rather than strains the social contract, then the answer is more complicated.
What is clear is that improving electoral outcomes requires more than electoral reforms. It requires addressing the broader governance deficits that make elections fragile in the first place, security gaps, weak institutions, limited accountability, and a disconnect between policy decisions and everyday realities.
From where I stand as someone working at the intersection of communication, governance, and civic engagement the challenge is also about how we frame these issues. Too often, we treat elections as isolated events, focusing on timelines and logistics. But elections are reflections. They mirror the strength or weakness of the systems around them. If those systems are under pressure, the mirror will show it.
The risk is not just that elections become less free. It’s that they become less meaningful rituals that continue, but with diminishing impact on how people live and what they expect from the state.
Nigeria is not out of options. There are still institutions to strengthen, processes to reform, and citizens willing to engage. But it requires a shift in focus from managing elections as events to building the conditions that make those events credible.
Because in the end, the question is not just whether ballots can prevail over bullets.
It’s whether the system can make ballots worth the risk.