Democratic ideals and the Nigerian state: what hope for the future

Abstract

An analysis of the principles of democracy was carried out. The objective was to delineate the extent to which the Nigerian state is democratic and how its current democratic ideals could impact on its future existence as a state. The method adopted for the study was that of content analysis, which involved conceptual and historical analyses of textual data. It was discovered from historical data that the Nigerian state runs a system of government, which promotes internal colonialism of the minority groups by the major ones. This political imbalance was shown to create social and political tension, where the peripheral groups were hostile to the core regions. It was recommended in the study that if the Nigerian state is to subsist in the future, then it has to restructure its political institutions to promote true federalism as well as imbibe and practice standard democratic ideals.

Keywords: Democratic ideal, Nigeria, Hope, Future