Democracy or Political Leadership: Who Is Failing the Nigerian People?

With the commencement of the Fourth Republic democratic dispensation in 1999, it was the expectation of majority of Nigerians that democracy would have delivered the much expected socio-economic and political benefits to the people. On the contrary, more than seventeen years into democratic governance, Nigeria is still grappling with the delivery of socio-economic and political benefits of democracy with a governance system that is characterized by widespread impunity among public officials, electoral fraud, brazen corruption, prevalence of the rule of men instead of the rule of law, abuse of judicial process, inability or the unwillingness of the governance class to meet the welfare needs of Nigerians and several other socio-economic and political ills that has bedeviled governance at all levels of government. The persistent crisis of governance has made several scholars and commentators to question the appropriateness of representative democracy towards engaging the Nigerian conundrum. The question the paper interrogates is: has Nigeria really practiced democracy? Has the political class allowed democratic principles and rules to guide their conduct in their political relationship as well as in governance? Is it not possible that it is the Nigerian political leadership that has failed Nigerians by refusing to play the game of politics and governance according to democratic rules and principles? After careful examination of the above questions, the paper concluded that the crisis of governance in Nigeria is attributable to failed leadership and not necessarily democracy as a governance system.