25 YEARS OF NIGERIA’S DEMOCRACY AND ITS CHALLENGES

Abstract

Nigeria started civilian administration again on May 29th, 1999, when military men disengaged from politics. The vision and aspiration of the then civilians, military leaders, rulers and other stakeholders who fought vigorously for civil rule were dashed to pieces and jeopardised because of crises among political parties, corruption, terrorism, and kidnapping that cut across the nooks and crannies of the country, coupled with the role of civil society and the elections tribunal in the last 25 years that have been so worrisome. The paper examines democracy in Nigeria and analyses its challenges. The paper adopted the survey method and used primary and secondary data to gather and collate data. Findings revealed that corruption and lack of internal democracy are parts of the challenges of Nigeria’s democracy in the last 25 years. At the end of the study, the following recommendations were made: (i) political parties in Nigeria should strictly adhere to internal democracy; (ii) all hands should be on deck to deal with all hypocritical behaviour, such as defections from one political party to another and double dealing; and (iii) there should be free, fair, credible, and acceptable elections that cut across the federation during general elections.