The Impact of Globalization on Political Development in Nigeria (1999-2007)

Abstract

In this paper, we addressed the questions of political development in Nigeria in the context of ongoing globalization process. This problem is analyzed in view of attenuated democratic institutions, inefficient public service, and rent seeking behaviours, disillusioned citizenry, erratic and conflicting state policies, dysfunctional electoral system and venal political class that have become the defining features of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Firstly, we argued that neo-liberal policies of free market, competition, privatization, deregulation etc adopted by successive governments are pillars of contemporary globalization. These policies created economic and social conditions of poverty which are antithetical to participatory democracy. In other words, neo-liberal policies driven by globalization have not been supportive of democratization process. Secondly, the paper showed that the necessary economic infrastructure for sustainable democracy is undermined by transnational corporations for purposes of profit maximization. Clearly, the misuse of oil revenues by multinational oil companies in Nigeria has exacerbated political discontent and provoked internal political violence such that the country is predicted to be a failed state by 2015. Finally, the paper observed that agents of globalization, in clear pursuit of corporate interests, played active role in the culture of impunity and absolutism associated with the civilian administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 9(3), 186-201, 2012