The 2019 General Election in Gombe State: An Analysis of the Voting Pattern, Issues, Impacts and its Implications

Abstract

The 2019 General Election in Nigeria is the six General Election in the Fourth Republic and in Gombe State of Nigeria. The Election presented a peculiar voting pattern in the State for the first time in its history which made the study a unique and an interesting one. Election is usually accompanied with fears, anxieties, speculations and uncertainties in developing democracies like that of Nigeria and its peers. The study critically investigated the 2019 General Election in Gombe State specifically in terms of voting pattern, the issues that emanated and the impacts of the issues as well as the implications on the future of election and politics in the State. The research used both primary and secondary sources of data collection. The primary sources consist of an in-depth interview with some selected stakeholders in the area of study. The secondary sources are the existing literature on the subject matter of study. The data obtained were discussed, analysed and interpreted using content analysis where coding was made for a particular group of data on related issues. The work discovered that the 2019 General Election in Gombe State was peaceful and successful but the voting pattern indicated the influence of some factors such as money, religion and media in shaping public opinion for choosing leaders at different levels and there is a benefit politically from the voting pattern but specifically, there is an important lesson to learn from the outcome of the Election. The research recommends among others that there is need for massive political education to eschew ethnic, religious and indiscriminate voting in the future.