State Capture and Elective Dictatorship in Nigeria’s Democratic Space: A Critical Analysis

Nigeria has run democratic governance consecutively for twenty-one years. Within this timeframe, democracy has demonstrated signs of maturation and consolidation. Nigeria has witnessed administration-to-administration and party-to-party transitions. However, the political system tends to lack certai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:African renaissance 2021-03, Vol.18 (1), p.53-72
Main Authors: Nwozor, Agaptus, Olanrewaju, John S, Ake, Modupe B, Aleyomi, Michael B, Lawal, Ejalonibu Ebenezer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Democracy
Democratic governance
Democratization
Dictators
Dictatorship
Elections
elective dictatorship
Electoral systems
Governance
Management
Maturation
Nigeria
Political culture
Political elites
Political science
Primacy
State Capture
Voters
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Summary:Nigeria has run democratic governance consecutively for twenty-one years. Within this timeframe, democracy has demonstrated signs of maturation and consolidation. Nigeria has witnessed administration-to-administration and party-to-party transitions. However, the political system tends to lack certain fundamental political culture, especially the entrenchment of the supremacy of institutions rather than personalities. The key question that this paper interrogates is the extent to which the democratic ethos of elective principles and institutional independence have been entrenched. Adjunct to this question is whether state capture by political elites through elective dictatorship has compromised Nigeria’s democratic space in terms of circumventing people’s electoral powers. The paper finds that democratic processes have been short-changed through the instrumentality of elective dictatorship. It also finds that the primacy of the electorate as the motorising force of democratization has been undermined. It recommends political inclusiveness through the modification of the electoral system to confer primacy on elective principles.
ISSN:1744-2532
2516-5305
DOI:10.31920/2516-5305/2021/18n1a3