Party Politics and Democratic Governance in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic from 2011 to 2015

Abstract

The country (Nigeria) was granted independent in 1960, through the struggle of the Nigerian nationalist in a peaceful process.

Historically, the beginning of political party in Nigeria by Herbert Macaulay as the leading figure of the first generation of Nigerian nationalist as the political party was the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) in 1920s.

The Nigerian National Democratic Party dominated Nigerian politics throughout the 1920s until the late 1930s when the Nigerian youth movement (NYM) emerged.

Furthermore, the political parties of the first republic were ethnically based that is to say the Northern People Congress (NPC) for the north, National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) for the east, and the Action Group (AG) for the west.

The institutionalization of ethnicity as a political ideology characterized the politics of the first republic as could be discerned from the nature and character of the political parties that were formed.

The second republic also saw the emergence of multi – party system. The question of party politics became a constitutional matter.

Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

Nigeria is strategically located in the West African continent with a population of over one hundred and forty million (140,000,000) (Ploch, 2012).

The country is endowed with almost all the vegetational zones found in the tropic starting from the Sahel region in the extreme north through Savannah land in the forest region to the swamp mangrove down to the Atlantic oceans. (Cha, 2010:48).

The country is bordered in the north with Niger, Cameroun in the east, Benin in the West and South to the Atlantic.

The Benue and Niger rivers which joint at Lokoja divided the country into three segment that approximated Nigerians political division up to 1963 i.e. northern, western and eastern regions.

Though home to hundreds of other ethnic groups (each having its’ own political system, region, language and cultures). These regions were respectively dominated by Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo groups.

To be sure Nigeria is the most populous black country in the African continent (Chukwemeka, 2009:405). The country has abundant human and natural resources such as petroleum, cotton, cocoa, iron ore etc (USAID, 2007:1).

References