DEMOCRACY AND CHALLENGES OF 2011 ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA

The 2011 elections are all over. It was eveiybody else's desire that the elections should be peaceful devoid of rigging and manipulations of results so that we can have right type of leaders who will move the country forward and to ensure a sustainable democracy in Nigeria. Under normal circumstances', elections are supposed to be free, fair and transparent going by the rules and regulations guiding it, but in the Nigerian context, the reverse was the case. Lack off reedom andfairp rocedures of2011 elections in the country led to religious and ethnic politics, godfatherism, open use of money, thuggery and rigging, misuse of law enforcement agencies, political violence which led to the death of many people and destruction of public and private properties across the country. These were the major challenges of 2011 elections in Nigerians. In terms data collection, documents, empirical researches conducted, committee and eye-witness reports were the sources of the information in the paper. To have credible elections in a country, callsf or active collective responsibility of all the stakeholders of elections in Nigeria, so that together we can move the country forward toward selfreliance development