Nigerian Government and Governance: Democracy or Kleptocracy?

Abstract

This paper examines the nature and system of Nigeria’s government and governance to ascertain if truly she is practising/operating democracy or kleptocracy. In doing this, paper embarks on conceptual clarification briefly on democracy as a common concept and ponders much on kleptocracy for proper understanding. After which the paper looks at features of both democracy and kleptocracy, symptoms, effects and remedies/solutions to kleptomaniac instincts. Questionnaire was employed as the tool of eliciting responses from the respondents while paired simple statistics of data analysis was used for the collected data. Some of the findings states that; anybody found of false assets declaration he/she be removed from office, be tried, jailed and be banned from political participation/appointment for life, judiciary is also aiding and abetting kleptocracy, that signing of freedom of information bill into law will curb kleptomaniac instinct from our leaders, that Nigerian leaders are not accountable to the masses, etc. Finally, recommendations were made parts of which are; That assets declaration be made compulsory pre-requisite screening before, during and after being in office, that our laws be amended to include items 3 to 8 on the questionnaire as means of remedying the idea of operating kleptocracy in the guise of democracy.