An Expository Analysis of the Nature and Essence of Constituencies in Contemporary Democratic Practices

Abstract

Legislative governance in process illuminates symbolic relevance of constituency. This discourse in ontological sense reexamined concept and essence of constituency as observed across democracies. In a qualitative methodological perspective, the data of this discourse were collected through secondary sources (text, articles, documentary reports) and content-analyzed to reveal that constituencies reflect in electoral and representative significance showing models in mainstreaming public interests in legislative processes. In addition, the discourse acknowledged the import of grassroots constituencies to further reveal that there are currently 8,809 electoral wards represented by 419 and 355 local legislative councils respectively in North and South regions of Nigerian federation. The discourse concluded that constituency in its classifications convey a sense of ‘‘identity and voice’’ to assess primacy, scale and impact of legislative governance to popular and minority expectations.