ELECTIONEERING PROCESS AND MANIFESTATION OF VIOLENCE AND CRIMINALITY: A CASE STUDY OF OYE EKITI IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

Since Nigeria's independence, elections have been a highly contentious affair characterized by violence and criminality that has discouraged peace-loving and change-thirsty Nigerians from exercising their voting rights. The use of coercion, rigging, and vote buying among other veritable tools by political actors to seize power or mandate disenfranchises and alienates the electorates. Despite considerable measures taken by the government and the hapless citizenry to nick electoral violence in the bud, it appears that this multifaceted problem has not been tackled holistically; therefore the menace remains unabated. Thus this study examines electioneering processes, manifestation of violence and criminality: a case study conducted on 200 respondents selected in totality with 66 based on three areas (Irare, Idofin & Egbe) in oye local government who are reproductive age adults by unravelling major catalysts fostering electoral violence/criminality; evaluating various implications on the electoral process while examining various efforts made towards stemming the rise in electoral violence/criminality within Oye-Ekiti. Data was collected through structured questionnaires using the Cluster Sampling Technique to select participants. Findings revealed major causes for electoral violence/criminality are political will (82.5%), proliferation of small arms/light weapons (80.5%), vote buying (78.5%) & and result manipulation (64.5%). The majority disagreed with hate speech being a significant cause. Furthermore, findings showed that an overwhelming (73%) acknowledged that Electoral Violence/Criminality does affect voter turnout while only an infinitesimal (17%) disagreed. The study recommends urgent action be taken such as re-orientating voters via formal/informal institutions against the cancerous octopus "vote-buying", neutrality of security personnel deployed during the election process along strong legislation against the proliferation of illegal arms currently circulating our society.