Inclusive Voter Education through Adult and Non-Formal Education: Addressing Obstacles to Nigeria's Electoral Process

This paper is a discussion on the need for addressing vote buying as an obstacle to electoral process in Nigeria through inclusive non-formal voter education. The study was necessitated by observing the rate of money politics scourge played by Nigerian adults and politicians and how the problem is affecting developmental decision and policy making in Nigerian. Vis-à-vis efforts made by the electoral authorities and security agencies to eliminate the menace, but the challenge is still persisting in the polity taking different dimensions. Education in form of adult education or any kind of enlightenment directly or indirectly to change adult voter perception or attitude by a professional adult and non-formal education expert in support of credible, free and fair electoral process could be defined as voter education. This is a specialized responsibility of professional adult and non-formal educators, because changing adult attitude requires professionalism. The paper reviewed the concept ofvoter education, adult education, vote buying, inclusive voter education, mechanisms for inclusive voter education and other key aspects of voter education. It was concluded that, inclusive voter education should be organized and implemented in collaboration with professional adult educators to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. The study also recommended that, INEC should collaborate with adult and non-formal education professionals to regularly educate voters i.e. voter education should not be during elections only but frequently and effectively and less emphasis shall be given to media and other indirect means of voter education but face to face education