Connecting Lockeian Social Contract Theory to the Crisis of Democratic Governance in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic

Abstract

It is a well acknowledged fact that twenty years into the Fourth Republic, Nigeria is still grappling with the delivery of the socio-economic and political benefits or dividends of democratic governance; socio – economic welfare, justice, equity and equal access to the country’s resources and power – to the citizens of the country. This persistent phenomenon of ineffective and undemocratic governance has made scholars to severally describe Nigeria’s democracy as “ailing”, “fledging”, “nascent”, “illiberal”, etc. To explain this crisis of democratic governance, the paper mainly attributed it to the absence of the fundamental democratic principles espoused by the Lockeian conception of the social contract. Thus, the main argument of the study is that the absence of the Lock’s Social Contract democratic tenets in the practice of democracy in Nigeria is largely responsible for the ailing condition of the country’s democratic experience. To achieve its objective, the paper employed the elite theory and descriptive method of analysis to examine data derived from secondary sources. The paper concludes that for the country to make any meaningful process in democratic governance, deliberate measures need to be taken to strengthen democratic institutions in order to curb the excesses of the managers of the political system in Nigeria. Keywords: Lockes’ Social Contract Theory, Democratic Governance, Fourth Republic, Consent, Representative Democracy, Rule of law. DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-2-07 Publication date: February 29 th 2020