The relevance of blockchain based voting adoption in governance structure : evidence from Nigeria

A country cannot be truly democratic until citizens can choose their representatives through elections that are free and fair. However, general elections in Nigeria have witnessed varied setbacks from manipulations of election results, vote buying and violence, which often characterised the process that give births to leaders. These challenges have now reduced the number of voting turnout, and thus citizens are calling for technological adoption to make elections transparent and error free. Therefore, we investigate the relevance of blockchain based voting technology adoption in the governance structure in Nigeria. The study used a semi-structured interview on a sample of sixteen respondents based on technology, organisation, and environment model, and analysed with Nvivo. Our findings show that, citizens are happy with the voting process of electing their leader but discouraged that their votes will not be counted in getting their voted leader. Interestingly, they will be more interested in casting their vote from their comfort zone if blockchain technology can make the election transparent, and results not manipulated or altered to reflect their desired decision. The study is pioneer to explore from African emerging economy on how election fraud can be eliminated using blockchain based voting.