Promoting transparent electoral system towards good governance for the attainment of sustainable development in Nigeria: The roles of libraries

Abstract

Good Governance promotes fundamental grounds of participation and democracy which bring forth implications for sustainable economic development in a contemporary society. The study examined the role of libraries in promoting a transparent electoral system towards good governance for the attainment of sustainable development in Nigeria. In carrying out this study, three research questions were raised to guide the study.A descriptive research survey was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 125 librarians. The instrument used for data collection was an online questionnaire and an interview. An online Google form was used to administer the questionnaire through theLibrary WhatsApp platform, out of which 50 librarians responded. The technique used was simple random sampling. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and frequency distribution and percentages were used to compute the data based on the responses recorded from the online Google form. The results of the survey show that electoral fraud, electoral violence, electoral irregularities, ignorance, corruption such as vote buying, and faking election results are some of the factors affecting a transparent electoral system towards the achievement of good governance for the attainment of sustainable development. The recommendations werethatNigerian libraries should provide unbiased access to information for users to politically participate as citizens during their country’s selection of choice leadership. There is a need forinclusion and participatory governance such as appointing a librarian as Special Assistant (SA) to the government on Library Matters among others.