“I feared for my life”: votes, violence, and the endangerment of electoral officials in Nigerian elections

Purpose This study aims to examine the risks faced by electoral officials in electoral violence hotspot areas in Nigeria and to empirically explore the political factors that increases the likelihood of their being targeted in balloting spaces. Design/methodology/approach The study chronicles the experiences of electoral officials who were targets of political hoodlums seeking to disrupt elections. The author utilized in-depth interviews and mini focus group discussions to elicit information on the dangers faced by the study participants in violent hotspots. Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission were purposively sampled. Data analysis considered thematic approaches. The paper also draws from a diverse set of secondary sources selected to address different aspects of the discussion. Scholarly sources are used to address how the relationship between electoral violence and electoral officials have been discursively framed in academic scholarship. Similarly, policy and journalistic sources are utilized to triangulate the primary data and clarify election-related events within specific periods. Findings The findings highlighted the pervasiveness of political thugs or hoodlums in voting and ballot collation spaces, as well as the inadequacy of state security agents to protect election officials. Close electoral races among two major political parties in a political context where violence is both leverageable and commodified increases the likelihood of violent skirmishes in balloting spaces, which impacts the safety of electoral officials. The findings equally align with previous studies that link off-cycle elections in Nigeria to high incidents of violence compared to general elections. Research limitations/implications This study acknowledges two primary limitations. Firstly, the restricted participant pool may not capture the full spectrum of experiences, thus potentially limiting the generalizability of findings beyond Rivers State’s 2016 re-run elections. Secondly, lack of inclusion of Nigeria Police Force perspectives due to the adverse political climate in the country in the period of fieldwork impacts the richness of the primary data. While this omission affects data comprehensiveness, insights were partially supplemented by existing secondary research on related themes. Consequently, the findings are context-specific. Originality/value The findings in this study expand the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between violence and off-cycle elections in Nigeria, as well as their related impact on electoral officials.