Political Behaviour and Voting Pattern in Nigeria: A Study of 2015 Presidential Election

operate Political Behaviour determines electoral process and voting pattern in every democratic regime. In Nigeria, the political and socioeconomic settings as well as historical background of the country shaped the behaviour and voting pattern of the electorates in the Presidential elections that took place in the history of the state so far. This paper examined how political behaviour and voting pattern in the recently concluded 2015 Presidential Election determined the outcome of the votes and the winner. The main objective of the paper is to examine how the 2015 Presidential Election differs from the previous Presidential Elections in Nigeria as a result of the influence of political behaviour and voting pattern of the electorates. The methodology adopted for this work is the use of qualitative data where a case study was adopted. The research concludes that, the 2015 Presidential Election is different to some extent with the previous Presidential Elections in Nigeria as a result of change of political behaviour of the electorates and voting pattern from religious affiliation, ethnicity, regionalism, nepotism, to issue-based politics including corruption, insecurity, poverty, unemployment, and many other related issues. The paper recommends that, for a better and more free and fair elections that will produce good leaders to occur, the electorates should be re-oriented to focus their choice of leaders based on performance, accountability, issue based campaign and a totally free electoral umpire that can conduct an election without any favour.

Keywords: Election, Ethnicity, Political Behaviour, Religion, Voting.