Vote-selling poses grave danger to any society and voter education is widely believed to be the panacea. This research evaluates the effectiveness of voter education in curbing vote-selling at Eti-Osa Local Government Area in the 2019 general elections. While some separate studies have been done on voter education and vote-selling, none was found that specifically evaluates the effectiveness of the former in curbing the latter. This is a gap this work seeks to fill. The three objectives of the study are to assess the level of voter education voters in Eti-Osa received before the 2019 general elections; to evaluate the appropriateness of the major channels used in communicating the voter education messages; and to ascertain whether voter education curbed vote-selling in Eti-Osa Local Government Area during the 2019 general elections. The Effect and Medium theories provide the theoretical framework for the work while questionnaires administered through multistage sampling technique and interview were the sources of gathering the relevant data. The findings reveal that the level of voter education in Eti-Osa was high and the major channel of voter education was fairly appropriate, though the mass media were not used. There is also a strong evidence that the voter education that was conducted curbed vote-selling to a large extent. Accordingly, it is recommended that the voter education efforts in the Local Government Area should be sustained in future elections; more channels of communication should be explored, while future voter education campaigns should also target politicians.
Harry M. and Ogbu, S. U (2022) Effectiveness of Voter Education in Curbing Vote-Selling in the 2019 General Elections at Eti-Osa Local Government Area, Lagos, Global Journal of Politics and Law Research, Vol.10, No.8, pp.1-32
Keywords: Election, Media, communication, vote-selling, voter education
