You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on political Godfatherism and governance in Nigeria’s nascent democracy with particular focus on the contemporary practice of godfathers in the fourth republic in Nigeria. Democracy is expected to provide a more inclusive and participatory form of governance (AdeAbolurin, 2010) ,the impact of Godfatherism in Nigerian politics gave rise to the evaluation of the concept and its implications on the politics of the country. The vocal objective of this paper to examine whether political Godfatherism affect good governance in Nigeria. Godfatherism brings bad governance with the notion that the abuse and wrong deployment of the phenomenon of Godfatherism by the key political players have polluted the democratic atmosphere and quality of governance in Nigeria.This study find true democracy to come from the grass root and not from the top; it evolves from effective participation of the citizenry in the political process and further determine that the govern should not only come out to exercise voting right but they can be voted for and that the contemporary practice of Godfatherism in Nigeria is unhealthy for the development of the nascent democracy in the light that the exercise of political control by small number of persons possess strong foundation in the governance and political activity of Nigeria. Characterizing the fourth (4th) Republic (1999 – till date), political godfathers are gatekeepers that determine who participate in politics and under what conditions with the determination to amass wealth for themselves through their installed godsons. The godfathers are interested in using state funds to secure loyalty of people in the state which undermines the rule of law, political institutions and promote corrupt practices (Neopatrimonialism). In contemporary democracy, politics of godfatherism has become a universal issue in the political development of many countries, Nigeria inclusive. This paper shows the implication of politics of godfatherism on the socio-economic and political development of Nigeria. Obviously,godfatherism has permeated every fabric of the country and has seriously affected the political system. This paper is qualitative in nature; data were obtained from secondary sources where numerous articles, newspapers, magazines, books reports, and archives were systematically reviewed. In elucidating the topic under examination, the researcher used Elite theory. This theory was advocated by Vilfredo Pareto in 1935. The postulation of the theory is that elites are replaced by another group of elites, meaning that the majority are unavoidably governed by the minority. The study found that the politics of godfatherism has a negative impact on the socio-economic and political development of the nation by confining power in the hands of the few elites at the expense of the masses (electorates). This has affected the socio-economic and political development of the nation, and by extension led to inter-party and intra-party defections, decampings and conflicts among the party members. Therefore, the study recommends the implementation of the direct primary election in selecting candidates into elective positions. In addition to that, INEC should make a law that will discourage money politics and should as well punish culprits involved in such an illegal political act.
