Abstract
This article examines the issue of prisoners' right to vote in Nigeria from a socio-legal perspective. Despite the Nigerian Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote for all citizens, prisoners are currently denied this right in Nigeria.
This article additionally reviews pertinent provisions of the Nigerian Constitution, international human rights treaties. It also analyzes some selected European Court of Human Rights judgments, and then discusses the legal frameworks that regulate voting rights for prisoners in Nigeria.
The article concludes by arguing that while the right to vote is a fundamental right that should not be restricted based solely on a citizen's incarceration status and while the Government should value democracy and consider the right to vote as a tool for rehabilitation, not every prisoner in the Nigerian prison system should be given the opportunity to exercise this right. The article also makes recommendations that would improve Nigerian prisoner's voting rights.