Who votes EPP? Political and Voter Apathy among Undergraduates in Nigerian Territory Institutions

There is no doubt that youths or millennial are becoming apathetic towards political and voting process. It is on this basis that the paper examines the political and electoral- ‘voting’ behaviour of undergraduates in a specialized tertiary institution in Western Nigeria. A survey design using a questionnaire was administered on 50 randomly chosen students in a class of 450 who were eligible to vote. Result revealed that most of the respondents are politically empathetic but electorally apathetic as a result of their experiences such as corruption, abandoned projects, failed promises, selfishness, bad governance, and non-impact on their welfare, religion is the least of the reason. Another one-on-one interviews were randomly conducted on 28 students in other to establish the reliability of the claims, a number of students outside the earlier respondents were randomly interviewed in which the results show that undergraduate electorates will vote if the political class are receptive and people oriented. This phenomenon generated the parlance among the undergraduates, “Who Vote Help [Epp].” It then concludes that until government and stakeholders at all levels exhibit all forms of good governance, then election results may not reflect the voice of the people which inadvertently is the voice of god. It is hoped that the result of this work act not only as a panacea to the problems of voter and political apathy at all levels but steer debates and theories on the subject matter.

Keywords:
Apathy, Tertiary institution, Undergraduates, election, Nigeria