Poverty Trap in Nigeria’s Electoral Process

Implementing Alternative Policy Options for Effective Electoral Culture

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to examine the nexus between Nigeria’s political economy and poverty and how the menace has affected, not only the Nigerian electoral politics generally; but also to interrogate the extent to which the changing nature of the nation’s political economy and poverty has impinged on the morality of the vast majority of the teeming populace in the country in relation to the conduct of elections. This paper is a theoretical exploration of the works of scholars and experts in the broader field of democratic elections and poverty questions. The paper relies on secondary sources for data collection. The study discovers that the rising tides of money politics and poverty has has, and will continue to have tremendous impacts on the general psyche of the electorates as well as misguide the good intentions of the principles and letters electoral efficiency, and thereby truncate our nascent democracy if no urgent step in taken to forestall money politics, burgeoning squalor and the ever increasing poverty among the already impoverished electorates in the country.