THE ROLE OF SECURITY IN NIGERIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: PROFESSIONAL OR PARTISAN?

Abstract

This article examines whether security agencies in Nigeria's presidential elections have acted professionally or partisanly. Through qualitative analysis of elections from colonial origins to the Fourth Republic, it demonstrates a consistent pattern of partisan deployment favouring incumbents. Security forces have systematically facilitated electoral fraud through ballot box theft, voter intimidation, selective law enforcement, and provision of false evidence for result manipulation. Drawing on Schedler's electoral authoritarianism framework, the analysis reveals how security agencies function as instruments of "garrison democracy," staging elections to legitimise predetermined outcomes rather than protecting democratic processes. This partisanship generates significant consequences, like increased public trust deficit, escalated post-election violence, compromised judicial processes, which ultimately destroys "institutionalized uncertainty"-a foundational principle of democracy. The article concludes that security sector reform, including independent oversight and reduction of executive influence, is essential for Nigerian democratic consolidation. Without critical structural change, elections will remain authoritarian performances rather than genuine democratic choice.