THE NIGERIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
ISSN: 0331-4111 e-ISSN: 2736-075X
Volume 18, No. 2, November 2020
Pages 62-78
DOI: 10.36108/NJSA/0202/81(0240)
Old Wine in A New Wine Skin: A Sociological Reflection on Nigeria’s Democratic Regimes
1 Lawrence Okoronkwo Udensi and 2 Esther Onyinyechi Udensi
1 Federal University of Kashere, Gombe State, Nigeria
2 University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria
Abstract
Both military and civilian regimes in Nigeria’s leadership history ought to have drawn practical lessons to tackle corruption and enhance the much needed development that the nation desperately deserves. Democratic regimes in the evolution of the nation’s political history have continued to witness a trend of leaders that have transited from military to civil rule, defection from one political party to another as well as formation, re-formation or reconstitution of various political groups. Adopting Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy to reflect on Nigeria’s democratic regimes, this paper systematically and analytically reviews the dimensions and trend of various democratic regimes in Nigeria, in order to sociologically, make a case for strategies that could adequately assist to fight corruption and set an agenda for sustainable leadership, development and progress. The paper assumes that, unless visionless political formations and political party ideologies are deconstructed and pruned, combating corruption and deliberate action for sustainable leadership, which every nation of the 21st century yearns for, will continue to elude Nigeria.
Keywords: Corruption, democracy, politics, democratic regimes, sustainable leadership