New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Challenges of Good Governance in Africa: An Appraisal of the Nigeria’s Democratic Journey in the Fourth Republic (1999-Date)

Abstract

Though, Nigeria’s attempt to democratize its political space in the wake of the virtual continent-wide embrace of democracy following the demise of the cold-war was greeted with some attendant political stalemates. The impasse of the June 12th 1993 and the elongated transition to civil-rule programs of the Nigerian military government marked some turning points in the Nigeria’s journey towards democratic governance. The eventual departure of the Nigerian military from the political stage in 1999 and the birthing of democratic government only came into after the abrupt end of the cold war and the bipolar world system which, marked the triumphant emergence of the western liberal democracy, the final withdrawal of the Nigerian military from politics in 1999 and the formation of a democratic administration took over a decade to materialize. However, Nigeria , a leading proponent member-nation of the African home-grown initiative of NEPAD is today, challenged by a myriad of contending problems, arising paradoxically from some of the agenda with which NEPAD as a multilateral platform for the African nations has been put in place to address . This paper is essentially literature-based and therefore, attempts to historicize the Nigeria’s journey and its travails of democratization, as well as, the contradictions, which have also put to interrogation, the country’s democratic credentials amidst its crises of governance. The paper noted that, for Nigeria as a leading country on the continent, there is need for the self cleansing of its domestic polity and the civic space in keeping faith to the sacred creed of sowing the seed of democracy and consolidating such on the African continent.