Compelling the Disaffected: Turnout Collapse, Rational Exit and the Case Against Compulsory Voting in Nigeria

Compulsory voting is back on reform agendas as turnout declines, and its literature carries an unexamined premise: that the state mandating attendance can guarantee the act it mandates, safely, reliably and countably. This article names that guaranteed-act premise, derives rival observable implications for a motivation-deficit and a deterrence account of abstention, and tests them on Nigeria, where a bill before the National Assembly would punish non-voting with six months' imprisonment or a fine of at least one hundred thousand naira, after the lowest turnout in the country's history, 27 per cent in 2023. National survey evidence returns the deterrence signature in every zone: 77 per cent intend to vote, 76 per cent believe their vote matters, and 60 per cent call voting a duty, alongside 42 per cent expecting violence, documented polling-unit failure, and minority confidence in the count. Abstention under these conditions is rational exit, and compulsion would fine citizens for the state's failures, transfer the mandate's burden to the poorest, and erase the legitimacy signal abstention carries, an outcome the article names coercive participationism. The evidence supports a reform sequence: security, administrative reliability and trust repair before obligation, and a decomposition instrument portable to any electorate.