Corruption of Democratic Principles as a Source of Internal Conflict in Nigeria.

摘要

Since gaining its independence in 1960, Nigeria has struggled to establish stable governance to effectively manage and administer the tremendous resources of the nation for the common good. Since gaining independence, Nigerian officials have squandered over $400 billion through corrupt practices, while poverty among the population has grown and the income disparity between the elite and abject poor has increased significantly. Given the growing inequity among the people and officials that govern them, this paper attempts to determine how an ineffective government survives in a democratic society and how that government's survival may lead to conflict among the population. This determination is based on four ideas: (1) that federal, state, and local government officials in Nigeria are corrupt; (2) that federal, state, and local government officials enrich themselves through corruption while at the same time ignoring the basic needs of the population; (3) that the poverty that results from the corruption is the underlying cause of violence that has otherwise been described as communal, ethnic, religious or class-based; and (4) that the population is unable to break the cycle of corruption and hold these government officials accountable for their failures through elections and other democratic institutions because corruption renders these institutions ineffective. The paper finds that by embracing corruption, elected officials and other power brokers dilute the democratic principles of legitimacy, accountability, and institutional capacity, thereby robbing the people of the ability to seek redress of its grievances through the proper functioning of the government. Without the ability to correct deficiencies through nonviolent political means, the people are faced with violent ethnic and religious conflicts that have poverty and poor governance as their root cause.