Fifteen Years of Democracy, 1999-2014: Reflections on Nigeria’s Quest for National Integration

Abstract

This paper examined fifteen years of Nigerian democracy and its reflection on national integration, which is one of the basic dividends expected of any democratic system. The paper aims to bring to the fore why and how Nigerian democracy since 1999 to date is yet to put in place integrative mechanism for its divergent but dynamic nationalities to nationhood. Few works exist about Nigerian Democracy but its effort on national integration is scanty. Thus this paper is timely and relevant and asks for further research. The paper examines major contending issues affecting the Nigerian democracy, such as ethnicity, state creation, indigenes/settlers dichotomy, federal character principles, corruption, poverty, bad governance among others. The research method was majorly secondary data collection. Then, the paper proffered some ways forward and a conclusion by positing that after fifteen years promotion of good governance, social justice, economic development and some other structures, Nigerian democracy should have by now integrated the divergent nationalities into nationhood because it is achievable as experienced in Canada, Germany, America, Italy among others.