The main objective of this paper is to examine Nigeria 2015 elections and its impact on democratic consolidation. Elections and electoral processes are fundamental to the workings of every democratic setting of the modern state. Elections are the major hallmark of a democratic society. The paper adopted secondary method of data collection and informal rules approach as framework of analysis. The paper argue that despite the views of both domestic and international observers that the 2015 elections in Nigeria were credible, the much expected democratic norms and value are still lacking and the requirements for democratic consolidation are yet to be in place. The paper posits that what negates democratic consolidation in Nigeria is the failure of the actors to abide by the norms of democratization. For instance, there was no control of electoral spending, as billions of Naira was rolled out into campaign adverts, luring traditional leaders and political road shows which undermined equal opportunity to candidates whose party may not have such financial muscle. The paper argued that there is still need for large scale electoral reforms. It therefore recommend among others thing that INEC should be unbundled into three such as political parties registration and control commission, electoral offences commission and the election managers, accordingly such separation and independence of office will enable the commission to set up clear standards and enforceable regulations regarding political campaign funding and punishing those who commit breach of the electoral laws. It opines that stakeholders must commit themselves to the task of conducting free and fair elections if the Nigerian fledgling democracy will be consolidated.

The main objective of this paper is to examine Nigeria 2015 elections and its impact on democratic consolidation. Elections and electoral processes are fundamental to the workings of every democratic setting of the modern state. Elections are the major hallmark of a democratic society. The paper ...