A STUDY OF ELECTORAL SYSTEM IN NIGERIA: A LESSON OF EUROPEAN UNION

The focus of this paper is to explore the contributions of European Union. EU on Electoral system in Nigeria with particular reference to 2015 general election, to identify the challenges faced by European Union EU during the monitoring of the conduct of Nigerian general election and to offer alternative recommendations on how European Union EU would strengthening election monitoring in the Republic of Nigeria, particularly during the 2015 general election. The paper adopted qualitative method of data collection and content analysis was used to analysed the data more so, the paper also relied mainly on the secondary source of data drawn from websites, international agencies, documents report, journals, article in newspapers, magazines and books. The paper also unveils that the European Union electoral support has contributed to the deployment in Nigeria of the fact-finding missions as election observers to enhance the integrity of election. The paper however, discovered that most of the electoral assistance that was given to Nigeria and Independent National Electoral Commission INEC as an institution that is in charge of electoral activities in order to have fair and credible electoral system were given with the aim for Independent National Electoral Commission INEC to increase its capacity to deliver more professional electoral activities, and despite this the European Union EU officials that are sent are not enough to cover the monitoring of elections in the entire nation. The paper therefore recommended that in order for electoral system to be free, fair, credible and internationally accepted, some things need to be done. Government must to place priority on voter education and Independent National Electoral Commission INEC should be more independent, its source of fund should not be from executive arm of government. Adequate funds should be provided at the appropriate time, these will lead to free, fair, credible and transparency in the electoral process.