Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies: Home

Abstract:
For over two decades, there has been a new wind of democratic change sweeping across Africa where multi-party political systems were being installed all over the continent to replace the fallen authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. Today, democracy sits on the horn of a dilemma in several parts of Africa including Nigeria. As at now, the inadequacies of democracy and its practice as a political ideology in Nigeria are being illustrated by the tactics and tantrums of Nigerian political leaders and faulty political process. Free and fair election is still a mirage in Nigeria. This paper focuses on the meaning and content of democracy, and highlights the problems, and assesses the prospects of consolidating democracy in Nigeria under the prevailing national and international socio-economic and political conditions. The paper examines the interface between credible elections and democratic consolidation, and how electoral fraud has become a threat to the survival, growth and consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. Finally, the paper discusses the moral imperative of democratic consolidation in Nigeria, and the argument it advances is that without this imperative, instability will pose as a feature of Nigerian democracy.

Keywords: democracy, consolidation election, development, moral imperative

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