Ethno-Religious Sentiments and Voting Behaviour in Nigeria: A Survey of Adamawa North-Senatorial District in the 2019 General Elections

Since the inception of the First Republic in Nigeria, several elections have been conducted, but the 2019 general election is very significant in this research because it exposed the influential role of’ ethnicity and religion in the voting behaviour of different ethnic and religious groups in Adamawa-North senatorial district. The research adopted Social cleavage theory as conceptual framework. Quantitative research methodology was adopted for the research, where both primary and secondary data were collected for the research, Statistical Package for Social Science was used to analyze the data using simple percentage tables and Chi-Square. This research work interrogates the influence of ethnicity and religion in the voting behaviour of the Nigerian electorates in Adamawa North Senatorial District. The study discovered that there was manipulation of ethnic and religious groups by the candidates and the manipulation influenced the result of the election. Candidates of political parties manipulated their ethnic or religious groups or even both in order to have more votes from them and by so doing affects the credibility of results of the 2019 general elections in Adamawa North Senatorial District. It is also found in the district that some people who belong to certain ethnic or religious groups were forced by their ethnic or religious groups to vote for candidates of their primordial ties against their conscience. ‘The work recommends that there should be a penalty clearly stated out in the law for any candidate that is manipulating or using his/her ethnic or religious bias for campaign which ultimately, instigates ethnic or religious conflicts.