'Lai Olurode Firstly, as an element of this malaise, he pointed at the outright reversals of democratic gains. According to him,“In many countries, official acceptance of democratic legitimacy was accompanied by the systematic removal of checks on power and the erosion of the rule of law”(p. 4). At the second level, he spoke about countries that got stocked and were thus unable to transit from authoritarianism. There were many actors in the'transition paradigm' that were simply not interested“in implementing the democratic institutions that would dilute their power”(p. 5). The third level of political anxieties can be traced to the failure of political systems“to deliver the basic services that people demand from their governments. The mere fact that a country has democratic institutions tells us very little about whether it is well or badly governed. This failure to deliver on the promise of democracy poses what is perhaps the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of such political systems”(p.5). The fourth source of political anxiety which he identified was the phenomenal growth in capitalism and the uncertainties and crises that often accompany it. These uncertainties and crises could be more profound in Africa with its fledgling capitalism. Of all these sources of political anxieties, the failure of elected governments in Africa to meet the existential needs of the people poses the greatest challenge to democratic governance. There seems to be a form of democratic apathy and indeed voter apathy which is being manifested in generalised apathetic behaviour of electorates and their disenchantment with the electoral process. Moreover, electoral bureaucracies are not trusted as umpires. Elected officials are also regarded as self-serving(see INEC and FES research report on Voter apathy and 2011 elections in Nigeria). Admittedly, this disinterestedness may not be obvious given the 12 Introduction: Electoral Reforms and Election Security sometimes profound enthusiasm and infrequent upsurge that get displayed during electioneering. In the main, however, the majority remains apathetic as voter's turnout in stand-alone governorship election hovers around 40%. Secondly, what seems to be prompting this desperate desire to participate in the electoral process is not preoccupation with the wellbeing of the public but the motivation tends to be self­centrednessthe perception that power should be grabbed for personal material fulfilment. If there is one aspect of the democratization processes and electoral reforms that seems unresponsive to reforms, it is the notion of politics as a do-or-die affair. Even, leading political actors do proudly promote this notion of politics. During one of his campaign tours in 2007 in his home state of Ogun, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said as follows: “This election is a do-or-die affair for me and the PDP. This coming election is a matter of life and death for the PDP and Nigeria”(The Punch, 11th February, 2007). Jega(2012, pp. 23-24) has re-echoed the frustration of the average Nigerian with the do-or-die mindset and he condemned the attitude of those he pejoratively referred to as'militicians' possessed by a DO-OR-DIE mindset in politics“and who have abused and generally undermined the political and electoral processes to hold on to power arbitrarily by holding under periodic residual electoral victories in court in order to legitimize their actions. Indeed, in no sector has the frustration of Nigerians been as manifest as in the electoral process in the past decade.” It is the above perception of politics as a do-or-die affair that has turned EMBs in most of Africa into becoming security managers during elections rather than concentrating mainly on the business of 13