CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN NIGERIA (2010-2014)
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Date
2016-03-13
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Department of Public Administration, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri
Abstract
The current democratic dispensation in Nigeria was launched again in 1999 leading to the emergence of the fourth republic. This came after a long time of despotic military rule in the country. Democracy was highly embraced by all with expected hope that it will deliver good dividends and socio-economic development. Democracy was equally welcomed in Nigeria with high expectation and enthusiasm since it has the capacity of ensuring political stability and socio-economic development. But this soon dashed as the political landscape of the nation was turned to a ‘battle ground’ not for national survival but for extending self-centric and elitist agenda. The system today lacks an agenda for the masses and their rights terribly suppressed. Instead of peace, stability, development and an egalitarian society, the nation is now characterized and marred by insecurity and political instability. In other words, not far into the fourth republic, the body polity became over heated by lots of challenges ranging from electoral malpractices, inter and intra-ethnic rivalry, religious crises and insecurity (Boko Haram) and weak democratic institutions in Nigeria. The objective of this paper is to examine the various challenges and prospects of democratic consolidation in Nigeria 2010 to 2014. The paper uses secondary sources of data gathering and qualitative mode of analysis. The paper found that ethnoreligious factor, absence of a true federalism, poverty, insecurity, corruption among others were the major challenges of democratic consolidation in Nigeria. The paper concludes that democratic consolidation can only be achieved in Nigeria when citizens freely and fairly elect their leaders such that those so elected owed their elections to the people and not to a cabal who stays in hidden places to write election results. Not only that, citizens will be willing and perhaps eager to support democracy if the political elites rise above class self seeking, corruption and give primacy to citizens’’ needs. The paper recommended that only discipline and subduing the dictatorial tendencies of Nigerian leaders and the encouragement of uninterested, sceptical and unconvinced, politically apathetic citizens to embrace constitutional democracy. In other words, the nation will be able to consolidate her democracy.
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Keywords
Prospect, Democratic Consolidation, Nigeria, Fourth Republic, Socio-Economic Development