Democracy is a system of government by which citizens of a country come together to choose or elect a representative of their choice into the office of power through election.
This is in order to bring about stability in the country, give the electorates the opportunity to elect leaders of their choice, give citizens equal opportunities in all sphere of life, to promote tolerance in the society or country, to avoid the misuse of power by political leaders, to make room for the rule of law (no one is above the law), gives citizens right to freedom, fair hearing, to vote and be voted for, and also protection of their properties and possessions, it also provides room for decision making.
Nigeria as a sovereign county practice a democratic system of government. Here no one is above the law, individual are allowed the right and opportunity to elect and support leaders of their choice through a peaceful election.
Every four years, Nigeria conducts an election for the electoral candidates to go into Political offices. Here political parties ( an organized group of citizens who act together as a political unit having distinctive aim and objectives involving political questions in the state and acting together in order to obtain control of government), are to select or nominate members to represent them due the election. The party with the highest number of vote wins. So each party has to come up with their manifesto (things they intend to do if elected into power), rallies and camping in order to get or draw the interest and attention of citizens or voters. This is called the pre election stage.
After this, a particular date and time is given for the direct election. This is done through an open ballot system. This is when thuggery and terrorism comes in.
According to the English dictionary, thuggery can be seen as the attitude of violence, usually criminal behaviour.
According to Alex P Schrind, terrorism is seen as an anxiety inspiring methods of repeated violet action employed by clandestine individual group or state actors, for idiosyncratic criminal and Political reasons.
Due to the quest for power, political parties in Nigeria have employed the use of thuggery and terrorism as an instrument or tool to get into Political offices or the office of power or government.
The Nigerian’s political system is characterized by thuggery, terrorism, violence in the electoral process because it is a male dominated system.
Political thuggery and terrorism is an act of political violence by hired hoodlums or ruffians by politicians to scare and intimidate their opponents. It is the use of physical force to threaten another person or group that either leads to injury or death, mental or psychological harm or privation within a political circle. It is the use of force to disturb or disrupt political meetings or voting at polling stations or the use of dangerous weapons to intimidate or scare voters and other electoral processes to cause harm to anyone connected to the process.
The reason for political thuggery and terrorism include; corruption, unemployment, lack of adequate security, lack or neglect of democratic culture, failure of the justice system.
Political terrorism is a serious threat to democratic consolidation and scares credible candidates. This in turn has resulted in many unresolved acts of criminality across the country.
Rigging of elections has become a normal political crime by politicians in Nigeria, stealing of ballot boxes by ruffians.
As of recent, election is not conducted in a free and fair way or won by the absolute majority instead, politicians and political parties have vice some means of changing numbers of votes and bribing people to influence the results of elections to their favour.
