The Arrogance Of Democratic Heresy And The 2007 General Elections In Retrospect

Abstract

This work examines the concept of democracy, democratic legitimacy and accountability, using the 2007 general election as its focus. The research reveres that democracy that is generally accepted as the type of government representing the majority and deriving its legitimacy from the collective sovereignty of the voters, exercised in a free and fair election, was not so, in most parts of Nigeria in the last 2007 general election. This was so because of the manipulation of agencies government, and the resultant did disenfranchisement of many Nigeria. The ugly development resulted to the emergence of winners devoid mandate of the electorates, thus the conceivable resultant institution of government, lacking of democratic legationary and accountability and giving birth to our home grown democracy, that could better be described, if it please you, as democratic heresy. The paper is of the firm resolve that the distilled essence of democratic governance will continue to be a mirage in Nigeria, so long as arrangements to ensure a free and fair elections are not practiced by the agencies of government, via the denial of the full participation of the electorates, who possess the trump card, and urges a departure from the unprecedented free the from the unorthodox practices, that characterized the 2007 general election in Nigeria