Diaspora Voting: Where Naija Might Carry Last

Less discussed is the equally remarkable expansion of Africa’s democratic franchise to its citizens in the diaspora. Before 1990, no Sub-Saharan African country extended the right to vote to any of its citizens living abroad. Today, a full two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries allow for some form of external voting. Noticeably missing from this list of countries is Africa’s largest democracy, Nigeria, which, along with Liberia, remains one of just two countries in West Africa without any form of, or legal allowance for, external voting.

The trend towards the enfranchisement of emigrants in African elections follows the broader trends of democratization and globalization following the collapse of the Soviet Union. African countries emerged from the international order of the Cold War, which placed more focus on their alignment with the duelling superpowers than to their domestic political institutions, and responded to a new Western-dominated global order by joining the third wave of democratization and beginning to recognize, at least in law, the right to vote for their citizens in diaspora, though de facto implementation lags behind this considerably. Social media and communication technology have accelerated these trends globally, providing diasporas easier connection to the politics and communities of their home countries, and giving governments interested in expatriate enfranchisement one more way to make it happen.

This has not, however, been Nigeria’s experience. Numerous features of the Nigerian diaspora, such as its size and economic power, would seem to strengthen the case for its electoral enfranchisement. Despite this, 15 years of advocacy around the diaspora vote have yet to bear fruit.