Democratic Governance, State Society Relations and National Security in Nigeria

Over the last two decades Nigeria has been suffering from serious political, economic and social dislocation in spite of high hope and expectation from the transition to democratic government. Many factors were attributed to the failure to live up to expectation in governance. Manifest challenges were largely rooted in its recent history, partly colonial and largely military long stay in power and corruption added to the toll. Since 1999, with the successful transition to democratic system, so much hope was raised among Nigerians to transform the country through achieving good governance, national unity, economic growth and development. Unfortunately this hope was not realized due to consistent degeneration of the political elites which largely affect the political system and its operation. Manifest in the operation of the state has been political recklessness, lawlessness, lack of transparency, accountability and failure to deliver the benefits of democracy. This trend breads lost of hope in governance, rising rate of crime, corruption and poverty as well as insecurity across the nation. This article interrogates the operation of democratic system over the last two decades with specific focus on state society relations and its effect on national security in Nigeria. In the light of the above the study uses both primary and secondary sources of data and content analysis in the investigation. Findings were that, poor governance, and corruption featured prominent in the nature of state society relations, and has been a major contributing factor fueling poverty and break down of social institutions leading to other social problems, including child abuse, prostitution, armed robbery, family breakdown, divorce, school dropouts, homelessness/vagrancy, malnutrition and deadly disease; these realities of societal vulnerability provide breeding ground for conflict and insecurity in the country. The study concludes that, unless and until governance issues are address upholding transparency and accountability and corruption tackled and reposition state society relations, no measures put in place can resolve security challenges.