DEMOCRACY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE

IMPERATIVES FOR ATTAINMENT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL ONE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper examined the nexus between good governance as imperative for attainment of sustainable development goal one in Nigeria. The study employed the pluralist theoretical perspectives to elucidate the constraints of governance in Nigeria’s socio-political milieu. The paper highlighted dilemma of a political leader in a democratic setting in Nigeria. The findings revealed that complexity and multiplicity of ethno-religious issues are major constraints to enduring democracy and good governance in Nigeria. These phenomena are also found to be the bane of Nigeria’s public policy implementation as the process results most often, in poor, callous and haphazard implementation and abandonment due to disagreement, policy, inconsistency, corruption, indiscipline, contractual failures and over lapping jurisdiction. We adopted the descriptive research method in which we used materials from magazines, newspapers, journals, text books and internet sources to explain these constraints in the attainment of sustainable goals in Nigeria. The paper recommended among other things, that democratic principles in Nigeria should be rooted in the norms and values of the constituent peoples of Nigeria. And that as a culture, it has to be imbibed from infancy, hence the need to make it part of our educational curriculum, separate and distinct as a course of study which should be measured in terms of popular participation, transparency, adherence to regulations rather than control of governance, tolerance and acceptance of diverse perspectives.