Government by the People and National Security in Nigeria: A Strategic Panacea for Good Governance

Abstract

This paper examined government by the people and national security in Nigeria: A strategic panacea for good governance. Government by the people is a function of the “will” of the people. This was practiced by people of early centuries who consequently had leaders of repute that led them both in peace and war times. Nigeria whose independence dates back to October 1, 1960 has had series of democratic governance up to the current fourth republic. These republics, less the current fourth republic, were truncated by military coup d’état, which also truncated itself at several points. These resulted in short lived regimes, unstable socio-economic development and growth, poor imagery in the international community as well as barrages of sanctions and denial of various assistance from world economic bodies such as WTO, IMF, World Bank and the UN. It indeed mutilated Nigeria’s national sanctity, integrity and sanity across the world’s view of the nation. With these, hardship and social insecurity ensued, governance was threatened and national security become ridiculed due to the emanation of strikes, riots, revolts, demonstrations, protests, breakdown of law and order and decay in judicial processes. The theory of direct democracy was brought to bear in this paper while the variables were conceptualized. The paper relied on observations, open interaction as well as in-depth secondary data for collection of facts. On the whole it was found that government by the people has direct impacts and implications to national security being that it is people driven. Therefore, the ways forward remains that the “will” expressed by the people must be respected and should be the determinant for governance.