Paper short abstract:

We demonstrate the difficulty in capturing what constitutes electoral violence and who is responsible by relying on qualitative as well as quantitative analyses of conflict events described in three Nigerian newspapers in the one-year period before the 2015 presidential elections.

Paper long abstract:

Nigeria's Fourth Republic has now survived longer than any prior attempt at democratic rule in the country, yet violence during electoral contests has continued to undermine the legitimacy of their results and of elected leaders. It seems a truism that in order to stop political violence, one most understand its causes. However, questions on what constitutes political violence, what its drivers are, and who are the responsible actors can be in themselves matters of perception and contestation. Especially in the conflict-affected country, public debate on political violence can become a power-struggle which, in turn, can affect the further development of conflict. In this paper we look in particular at how public debate on electoral violence is formed in three Nigerian newspapers. Based on these sources, we established a dataset on different types of conflict (protests, riots, deadly armed conflict, terrorist attacks) in Nigeria. The dataset covers the period April 2014-March 2015 —the one-year period before the presidential elections. In qualitative as well as quantitative analyses we demonstrate how newspapers' differing political affiliations can affect media representations of the dynamics of electoral violence in Nigeria. Most media attention was directed to the two major Nigerian parties: The People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Results demonstrate the difficulty of capturing and understanding electoral violence in Nigeria due to political claim-making. It also emerges that parties and political leaders are seen as major drivers of violent conflict in public debate.