ABSTRACT
This study was conducted to investigate the effects of electoral violence on political participation in Nigeria, using Edo 2020 Governorship election as a case study. It consisted of three (3) research questions, which were used to elicit data from the respondents.
The study adopted the evaluation research design. Three research questions were raised and one hypothesis was formulated and tested in the study. The population under study was 2,210,534, which comprised of all eligible voters in Edo state as at the time of this research. 72,931 eligible voters formed the research sample size, where 10% was selected from Local Government Areas with the highest and lowest turnout of voters. The research instrument used was the structured questionnaire, which was administered to the respondents by the researcher. The data gathered was analyzed using the IBM SPSS statistics (version 19), where descriptive statistics (Frequency, simple percentage and count) was used to analyze the responses, and t-test used to test the hypothesis formulated.
Results from the analyzed data indicated that electoral violence is caused by various factors which over the years, have been one of the major reasons causing a low turnout of voters during elections in the nation. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that making political office less attractive and less financially rewarding, a new orientation in respect of politics, the wholesome independence of the electoral commission will go a long way in checking electoral violence.
