INCESSANT CROSS – CARPETING IN NIGERIAN POLITICS UNDER THE FOURTH REPUBLIC AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NACCESSANT DEMOCRACY

Abstract

In the world over, democratic governance is often synonymous with political party systems. Therefore, to operate a democratic system without a political party is unthinkable. Party activities are subject to the provisions of the constitution, the party’s bye-law and party-ideology. In advanced countries of the world, political party connects the government and the electorates while party ideology in form of manifestoes were used to win the interests of the electorates. Also in advanced politics, ideological conflict remains the main reason for party defection which rarely occurs. The object of this work is to confirm that incessant cross-carpeting in Nigeria politics stood as a clog to the development of democracy in Nigeria. The paper employed doctrinal methodology and relied on primary and secondary sources of information such as the pronouncements of courts, judicial precedents, law report, relevant provisions of the constitutions and other relevant materials. It is discovered that faulty Constitution, large scale corruption, lack of internal democracy, ideological deficiency among other variables gave lopeholes for incessant party switching in Nigeria. In view of these, the work concluded that party switching is an ill-wind that blows no good to the development of the nacessant democracy as in Nigeria and so made the following recommendations among others, enactment of autocthonous constitution emanating from the people is paramount, good party leadership to enhance party internal democracy, enactment of well cut out party by-law thoroughly supervised by the joint efforts of Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) and party leadership to control corruption and enactment of clear cut party ideology. These, we believe, would enhance the advancement of democracy in Nigeria and control incessant defection.