DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT: EXPLORING THE MISSING LINKS

Abstract

Democracy and development are two concepts that precipitate one another. Representative governments where there is freedom of speech, periodic elections, freedom of association, accountability, rule of law and the likes beget development. Meaningful development can only take place where the rule of law is observed. A country bedeviled by arbitrariness and great insensitivity cannot be said to be representative of the people because such polity is faced with tension, strife, political violence, marginalization, exclusion, deprivation and all forms of insecurity.  The political leadership in Nigeria over the years has failed to deliver on the basic dividends of democracy thus, reducing the nation to a ‘Hobbesian State of Nature’ where survival and stomach infrastructure becomes a necessary consequence. Consequently, the political culture is largely at the participant and parochial levels of participation. Today we are faced with the challenge of vote buying as an average Nigerian is concerned more with what gets into his/her pockets for survival rather than what benefits the larger populace. Hence, playing the game according to the rule is farfetched. Therefore, the paper using documentary methods of data generation interrogates democracy and development in relation to exploring the lacuna. The study used the Marxian theory of Political Economy as the tool for analysis. The study also proffered solutions to identified problems.