Emmanuel Ikechi Onah

Abstract

This paper is aimed at interrogating the role of political structures in shaping party performance in elections in Nigeria. The interplay between formal party structures and candidates’ informal political structures often decide political outcomes in the country. This paper argues that in the 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria, the three major political parties and their candidates differed in the strength of their structures. Whereas the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) were strong in their formal and informal structures, the Labour Party (LP) turned out strong in informal structures. Using the qualitative research design and relying essentially on secondary data, this work also utilised structural functionalism as the theoretical framework of analysis. The paper argues that it was the difference in the strength of structures that largely made for the outcome in the 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria. Among the leading candidates in that election, whereas the advantage of Labour Party’s Peter Obi in informal structures of support propelled him to a strong third-place finish at the polls, it was the noticeable advantages in formal structures possessed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, that ultimately gave them superiority at the polls and eventually propelled Tinubu to victory. The paper recommends that parties must be able to institutionalise their support bases and build structures that have depth and which can stand the rigours of elections in the country and help them achieve victory at the polls.

   

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Published: 2026

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