Democracy without Participation: Understanding the Threat of Voter Apathy By Prof Auwalu H. Yadudu Bayero University Kano Presented   at The ALL NIGERIA EDITORS CONFERENCE (ANEC 2026) held in Enugu 23 – 27 SEPTEMBER

What My Presentation is about

• Democracy is about representative leadership whose legitimacy derives from votes freely given to determine choice of d electorate
• Not a discourse by a social scientist who uses quantitative analysis to measure apathy in electoral democratic processes
• Assessing What amounts to enthusiasm or apathy by the electorate not within realm of my specialty
• Social scientists measure impacts using quantitative tools
• As a constitutional scholar and observer l intend to go for appreciating perceptions generated by analyzing a few judicial cases pertaining to electoral disputes, political commentaries and anecdotes

Social Scientist vs Legal Scholar

• To measure democratic robustness, resilience and popular legitimacy the social scientist surveys what impacts on voters to encourage or dissuade to wit:
• Lack or failure of good governance
• Violence, thuggery, intimidation on electorate and processes
• Religious beliefs – Seventh Day Adventists BUT QUERY religious manipulation can serve as antidote to electoral apathy
• Failure or incompetence of election manager
• THE OTHER views how through widespread perceptions judicial overarching power, roles or decisions may impact negatively

Analyses by Legal Scholar not a social scientist

Amechi Vs Omehia, PDP, INEC

• Amechi participated and won primary
• His name was excluded and replaced by Omehia and PDP won election
• Upon mounting legal challenge Amechi, though not on ballot, declared WINNER
• AMECHI, deemed by court as illegally excluded, declared winner
• Court concerned with who was a lawful candidate
• Votes cast for the PARTY not in name

Uzodinma vs ihedioha, PDP, INEC etc

• Uzodinma contested against lhedioha and others
• He came 4^th , scoring 96,458 votes and lhedioha was declared winner with over 207,000 votes
• Uzodinma challenged that alleging that votes from 488 polling units were excluded
• In a BIZARRE twist, Supreme act awarded all votes claimed from 388 polling units to Uzodinma taking his tally to 309,753 a declared him WINNER
• NO basis of computation, votes scored by other parties ignored, no of registered voters not considered

OYETOLA VS ADELEKE & Others

• ADELEKE, having won majority votes and met other legal requirements, declared winner
• Tribunal excluded votes earned by OYETOLA in some polling units
• Tribunal upheld ADELEKE’s election while OYETOLA challenged it at Court of Appeal
• Court overturned decision, determined that OYETOLA’s votes were improperly excluded, though that didn’t put him ahead
• FUNDAMENTALLY, Court rendered entire proceedings of tribunal a NULLITY on procedural grounds COS author of verdict did not participate in proceedings on a particular date
• It matter NOT that ADELEKE had scored more votes, met other legal requirements

PROCEDURAL JUSTICE OVERTOOK EVERYTHING

MATAWALLE & ZAMFARA PRIMARIES STALEMATE

• Recall 2019 APC’s stalemated primaries due to factional squabbles & disputes
• INEC deemed at close of nominations that APC no valid CANDIDATES on the ballot but a court otherwise
• APC won the elections by popular votes Abd met legal requirements
• Supreme Court determined that APC had NOT VALIDLY field any candidates
• Court awarded all seats to PDP, the runners up without determining votes obtained or if other legal requirements had been met

SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS

• Do the various judicial outcomes sampled above amount to judicial nullification of popular democratic will and wishes of electorate
• In exercising and discharging their constitutional powers should the judiciary be more deferent to popular will expressed in the ballot box
• Could their actions dampen enthusiasm of electorate and further exacerbate vote apathy
• How else would the electorate and political class expect them to behave given constitutional and statutory requirements
• These are challenging questions that lack objective metrics to measure their impact on whether or not they engender voter apathy

PERTINENT QUESTIONS

• It must be pointed out that the entire electoral landscape and architecture in Nigeria &  unbridled and litigious  attitude of politicians has made judicial intervention in electoral matters more inevitable but very challenging
• Would one urge the Courts and judges to shut their doors to litigants given egregious violations of electoral and procedures ?
• Attitudinal changes sorely needed
• Constitutional and statutory changes needed to leave democratic choices in hand of electorate and/or minimize and lessen judicial involvement in such matters

A WORD ABOUT ROGUE JUDICIAL MEDDLING

• Chidi Odinkalu, the gadfly, never tires drawing attention to egregious judicial misbehavior
• LIFUPRUDENCE judges and their enablers need to be dealt with firmly and promptly
• Judges habitually exhibiting total disregard to judicial propriety, respect for hierarchical order and constant embarrassment need to be called out loudly
• Judicial impertinence and rascality should be called out
• Otherwise the Hausa and English saying, a single seed of bean spoiling the dough , or one rotten apple wrecking the basket, will end up being  the middle finger pointing at and the pervasive of smear impropriety may stick to them