ABSTRACT
The existence of vibrant political parties is a sine qua non for democratic consolidationin any polity. In Nigeria’s First and Second Republics, political parties were regionally based, and their activities led to the collapse of those experiments. This paper explores an important aspect of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic politics, with special interest given to the People Democratic Party (PDP), and the All Progressive Congress. The study posits that there is a direct relationship between the character and conduct of a country’s political parties and the degree of democratic consolidation in that country. The paper argues that eighteen years into this ‘democratic’ rule after the end of the military rule on May 29 th 1999, Nigeria has not scored high when placed in the same matrix with countries that are heading towards stable democracy. In attempting a discourse of this issue, the democratic theory popularized by Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Roberto Michels, Wright Mills, among others, known as the Elite theory was adopted as the theoretical framework of the study. From this, some research questions were posedthat state, thus: What is the impact of Political Parties in the Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria? What are the factors limiting the Political Parties in the DemocraticConsolidation of Democracy in Nigeria? What is the ef ect of party politics and internal Democracy in the Democratic Process of Nigeria? The Method of data collection was both of Primary and secondary. The secondary method, consist of previous works of other scholars and researchers, while the primary method consist of the distribution of questionnaires to residents of Nigeria. It was argued that the opposition parties inNigeria which ought to serve as alternative parties from which the electorate should choose from have been weakened by the lack of total commitment on the part of politicians to the national course. The paper further argues that more than 90%of the political parties in Nigeria are fragile entities, hence, have only developed shallow roots in the society, and concludes on the note that Nigerian political parties have failed in their democratic responsibilities of aggregating social interests, representing specific constituencies, and serving as intermediaries between state and society.
