Democratic Governance, Sustainable Development and Insecurity in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

The paper assesses the responsibilities of the government to its citizens and the state participation in provision of basic or essential amenities for the citizens. It argues that aside from economic challenges, corruption, ignorance, insecurity and illiteracy remain some of the major hindrances to welfarism and consequently democratic governance in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. The paper therefore, assesses the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) efforts at ensuring democratic governance in the continent and the sub-region respectively. The paper concludes that the Nigerian state, Economic community of West African states (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) need to take important steps in stabilizing the economy of member states such as Nigeria towards promoting democratic governance in the sub-region of West Africa and the African region in general. Findings from the study reveals that despite the lofty objectives of the AU and ECOWAS, they lack the institutional machinery and capacity to fully ensure good governance in member states and that bad governance or corrupt leadership has been the bane of democratic governance in Africa and Nigeria in particular among other various challenges of democratic consolidation. They often focus more attention and energy on issues such as monitoring elections, peace keeping activities and discouraging illegal overthrown of governments, especially through coup d’état than fostering a culture of good governance. It recommends among others that welfarism should be the watchword of governance in Africa and there should be strong commitment by the government to the achievement of MDGs/SDGs. The study employed solely the qualitative method of data analysis. As such, information were drawn from secondary sources of data collection such as text books, journal articles, Newspapers, workshop and conference papers and reports.