Abstract

Despite the potential consequences of vote purchasing on the nation's democratic system, vote-trading has become a common practice in Nigeria, where a deeply entrenched corrupt political class and a complex political environment have made it difficult for democracy to fully consolidate. The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception and attitude of Imo State electorate towards vote buying. The theoretical underpinning of this study was the social judgement theory. The methodology adopted for this investigation was the survey research design. From a population of 5,459,300, electorate who are eligible to vote in Imo State, a sample size of 384 was arrived at using Wimmer and Dominick online sample size calculator. Findings of this study revealed that respondents are highly aware of vote buying and this awareness has in no little way shaped their perception of the menace. Further findings also revealed that the attitude of Imo State electorates towards vote buying have been favourably influenced as a result of their high level of awareness of vote buying. This study therefore recommended that fighting vote buying must be a conscious effort of the government to provide infrastructure and amenities that will revive the hopes of its citizen towards good governance. Also, further study on vote buying should be carried out by other researchers to cover other regions this study could not handle.