Voter Apathy and Local Government Election in Nigeria: A Case of Ondo State, Nigeria

In recent years, voters turnout in local government election in many states in Nigeria have been generally low. In spite of the fact that it is the closest level of government to the people, political participation among voters in terms of voting has not be encouraging. This has culminated into poor service delivery, lack of motivation for politicians to develop policies at the local level, imposition of candidates, among others. Ondo state, one of the 36 states in Nigeria, has witnessed low turnout of voters’ participation in local government election. While there are theoretical and empirical studies on low participation of voters in local government election in Nigeria, only a few studies have been conducted in Ondo State. The study, therefore examined voter apathy and local government election in Ondo state. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques of research methods were used to analyze and interpret data for the study. The study employed stratified random sampling techniques to select three hundred respondents for the survey and purposive sampling to select one hundred and twenty participants for the Focus Group Discussions. Structured questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion were used to collect primary data from the respondents. Data collected from the survey were analyzed using frequency count and simple percentage as descriptive statistics, while data elicited from Focus Group Discussion were subjected to content analysis whereby information was assembled, analysed and was used to complement the analysis of the survey. Findings of the study revealed poor service delivery by local government, imposition, lack of credible candidates and poor organization of the State Electoral Commission as factors contributing to voter apathy in local government election in Ondo State. The study therefore recommended local government autonomy, strengthening of local government in area of service delivery, and enactment of National Independent Electoral Body to oversee the conduct of elections into loca government areas, among others.