Nigeria's Democratic Crisis and Mitigation: A Development Analysis

This essay delves into the challenges obstructing Nigeria's development, despite its abundant resources. It explores the country's political, social, and economic instability, highlighting issues like corruption, limited human resources, and ineffective leadership as key obstacles. The essay analyzes how these factors hinder Nigeria's ability to embrace globalization and achieve its developmental goals. It provides recommendations for improvement, including increased citizen involvement in policy-making, independent anti-corruption efforts, and the election of visionary leaders. The conclusion emphasizes Nigeria's potential for growth and development if the government effectively addresses these crises and fosters a commitment to change. The essay utilizes relevant sources to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of the issues and potential solutions.

Running head: DEMOCRATIC CRISIS AND MITIGATION
DEMOCRATIC CRISIS AND MITIGATION
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Introduction
A country’s progress is determined by the rate at which it develops and hence
development could be referred to as the determinant of a country’s progress. This essay encases
the reason of obstruction in the development of Nigeria despite its abundance of resources –
human, material and natural. Nigeria still lags behind many countries when it comes to achieving
the desired developmental goals despite the changes in competition brought about by
globalization.
A federal republic, Nigeria borders Benin, Chad and Cameroon, and Niger in the west,
east and north respectively in West Africa. The coastal part of the country locates itself in the
south in Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf of Guinea. Nigeria boasts of thirty-six states and a federal capital
territory. It is a colossal republic with around 186 million and counting and ranks seventh in the
list of world’s most populous countries.
Based on personal analysis it can be said that the Nigeria similar to most other African
nations is highly blessed with both inhabitants and natural wealth with richness in the cultural
heritage, yet Nigeria is among the list of peripheral countries without any closeness to
globalization. Globalization is facilitated by the increase in the interaction of people and
countries through economic growth and development and Nigeria is yet a peripheral country due
to the economic, social and political instability (Watts, 2013). With further studies, it has been
found that there are several factors, which confronts the development of Nigeria, keeping pace
with the Globalization. It can be found that the burden of politics on the citizens, limited human
resources, corruption, lack of capital or finance to execute the plans for development, lack of an
efficient leader are the main challenges faced by the country (Joseph, 2014). The policies are

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drafted by the legislation without taking into account, the target population. Nigeria ranks 152nd
out of 187 countries, as per the United Nations Development Program records in Human
Development. This is probably due to the lack of capital to implement the development plans
resulting in inferior quality of human life in Nigeria. It can also be determined that Nigeria is
caught in a web of corruption due to the lack of an efficient leader, to effectively recognize the
specific needs of the people, thus obstructing development (Whitaker Jr, 2015).
Solution
With respect to the rising concerns in Nigeria, certain solutions for the problems can be
recommended. In other words, meeting the challenges with effective measures can help Nigeria
pave way for development and embrace Globalization. The following recommendations are as
follows.
 The government should contribute more efforts in the involvement of the masses in the
process of articulation and achievement of policies as well as the policy makers is
recommended to drop the top-down approach, which in turn could be achieved by the
grand publicity of the intended approach.
 The government should stop intervening into anti corruption campaigns and should
appoint specific and effective departments like Economic and Financial Crimes
Investigation Commission as well as independent anti-Corruption Commissions to
function independently to prevent corruption and financial crimes (Collier & Vicente,
2014).
 New and effective leaders with vision centered, selfless, practical, nationalistic, reliable
and transparent should be elected and hard work should be done by the Nigerian

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government to endorse constancy in the politics, which would effectively increase
accountability and transparency within the country.
Conclusion
With the help of this essay, it can be concluded that Nigeria is one of the countries with
huge prospect in its growth and development yet it fails to reach its mark due to challenges like
political, social and economic instability and marked with rising corruption and crimes.
However, Nigeria has the capability to rise up and develop itself from a peripheral country to a
core country, is all subjected to the factors on how the Nigerian government effectively manages
the crisis. The chain of development can only be initiated if the will to change is manifested
within the people and the government.

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References
Collier, P., & Vicente, P. C. (2014). Votes and violence: evidence from a field experiment in
Nigeria. The Economic Journal, 124(574).
Joseph, R. A. (2014). Democracy and prebendal politics in Nigeria (Vol. 56). Cambridge
University Press.
Watts, M. J. (2013). Silent violence: Food, famine, and peasantry in northern Nigeria (Vol. 15).
University of Georgia Press.
Whitaker Jr, C. S. (2015). The politics of tradition: Continuity and change in Northern Nigeria,
1946-1966. Princeton University Press.