Democracy for Sale in Nigeria: Evidence from the Dollarization of the 2022 Primary Elections of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP)

Abstract

Democracy cannot effectively be practiced without money be it domestic or foreign currencies owing to the fact that the people and their needs are the central focus of the system. This accounts for why this study attempts to look at the dollarization of Nigerian politics with particular evidence from the 2022 APC and PDP primary elections and its implication on Nigerian Democracy. Dollarization as a coinage in this paper means the use of dollar as a foreign currency in Nigeria to buy votes as against the Nigerian Naira which was the usual norm in Nigeria’s electoral process. Methodologically, the paper applies qualitative method through the use of secondary sources of data such as journals, textbooks, periodicals and newspapers. It reveals that due to the selfish interest of the elites in various spheres of Nigeria’s political space, doubts appear to have been cast in the minds of ordinary citizens as to whether or not, democracy is the best system for a state like Nigeria. The paper reveals further that the relationship between money and politics in developing democracies such as Nigeria has called to  question, the issue  of whether democracy is for sale to the highest bidder in the country or not? Utilizing the elite theory as its theoretical framework, the paper concludes that money politics has created a non-elite exclusion in Nigerian politics in particular and democratic system in general. It therefore recommends among others: the need for political education particularly of the electorate on the need to make better choices of political leadership recruitment during elections and to understand the implications of monetizing their votes and conscience to incompetent and corrupt candidates aspiring to various political offices.