HISTORICISING NATIONAL ELECTIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTEGRATION IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN STATE: A CENTENARY DISCOURSE

This paper attempts a historical exploration of issues of national elections as it impinges on Nigeria’s  security and integration one hundred years after the famous 1914 amalgamation of the Southern and  Northern protectorates. Against the backdrop of the country’s challenges of imbalance or lopsided  federal structure, the usually elevated problems of ethnicity, absence of broadminded leadership,  minority-majority tussles among others, the nation’s politics has been frequently characterised by  violent conflicts that manifests itself in form of disastrous post-election crisis. The emotion this raises  consistently undermines the nation’s philosophy of “unity in diversity” as the foundation of Nigerian  State has always been threatened and tempted almost beyond the elastic limit of resisting violent ethnoreligious post election crisis. Arising from the recurring nature of this challenges and since the least  crisis-free elections are those conducted by the military, analysts are almost suggesting that the military  may be the best option or system of government for Nigerian State, instead of the wrongly copied and  adopted democracy that has failed in the Nation’s political environment. Examining varying  perspectives on national integration and gleaning evidences from historical happenings and events in  Nigerian State for the pasts one hundred years or so the paper makes far-reaching recommendations that would enable the country stand its feet in curbing or containing issues elections may raise in the next  one hundred years.