Political Godfatherism and Governance in a Developing Democracy: Insight from Nigeria

This paper focuses on political godfatherism and governance in a developing Democracy with special attention to Nigeria. Its staggering posture in Nigerian politics gave rise to the evaluation of the concept and its impact on the politics of the country. The cardinal objective is to investigate whether political godfathersim affect good governance in Nigeria. The study employed descriptive and content analytical method in the analysis of data. The findings of this study indicated that godfatherism has threatened the country’s nascent democracy. It is the position of this study among other things that competitions among godfathers to control state powers and resources through their favoured godsons have denied the electorates the right to elect their preferred candidates, thereby rendering elections ineffective and inconsequential. Besides, the fierce struggle for state power has also resulted in some of the worst electoral violence in the country, in almost all the elections that have been conducted in Nigeria since the inception of the fourth (4th) Republic, 1999 – till date, that godfatherism as practiced in Nigerian polity is a potential threat to the sustenance of democracy. This study therefore recommended that to ensure a government and democratic rule that will bring about societal development and transformation, there should be independent choice of candidates, free and fair election, financial independence of candidates, polity devoid of financial and material inducement of electorates, attitudinal change and positive perception among the team players in Nigerian politics.