PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE CHALLENGES OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA: A CRITICAL EXPOSITION (2010-2019)

Abstract

One of the most worrisome problems of Nigeria as a developing nation has been the consolidation of democracy vis-à-vis a prudent, disciplined, transparent and accountable government, responsible to the citizenry for their decisions and actions. This paper therefore had as its broad objective to scrutinize and address in concrete terms, the issues and cases of public accountability over the past decade (2010-2019) that continues to pose challenges to democratic governance in Nigeria. Accordingly, this paper employed content analytical approach, anchored on an ex-post-facto research design, so as to create a nexus between public accountability and democratic governance in Nigeria governing system. Consequently, secondary data from published academic journals, conference papers, articles, textbooks, and other relevant materials on the internet were sourced to build a formidable qualitative study. The paper anchored its theoretical framework on the Social Contract Theory as its basis of analysis. The paper found out that there is absence of strong counteracting power and effective institutional mechanisms, to hold public officials accountable for resources expended in the course of their service to the citizenry. The paper summed that the intriguing circumstances of public accountability in Nigeria have rather been in breach than in actual observance; with cases of corruption, embezzlements, misappropriation of funds, selected anti-graft war and crushing of press freedom. The paper therefore calls on the Nigerian government to embrace Open Government Partnership (OGP) in institutional restructuring and reforms, to make government more open, transparent and accountable to the people.