Democratic Governance and Social Service Delivery in Africa: the case of Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract

Postcolonial leadership is implicated in the distorted development and crisis of governance in Nigeria. The political leadership emerged from authoritarian traditions of the colonial state and pursued self-interests against collective societal interests; the mode of the emergence of the leaders as well as the context in which they operate usually impact on the nature and trend of social welfare provisioning. Relying on data from secondary sources, this study examined the impact of democratic governance on social service delivery with Taraba State and education as a case study. The data analysis was based on qualitative descriptive analysis. We found that the education sector under the two administrations between 1999 and 2014, was not prioritized in budgetary allocation, in contravention of UNESCO recommendation that 26% of the budget be dedicated to education. The study recommends, among others, that the government must show commitment to education as a matter of deliberate policy to allocate the required minimum percentage pecked by UNESCO to enhance educational development in Taraba state.

An Overview of Democratic Consolidation and Regression in Africa

“…In his work, Umar (2006) observed that it is about regime maintenance in such ways as to prevent breakdown of political institutions and processes. For Onuoha (2010), democratic consolidation entails progressive improvement in the procedural, structural and institutional capacity of an emergent democratic state to create and promote conditions that generate support for democratic permanence and sustainability. A common denominator of Umar and Onuoha's views is that democratic consolidation is about ensuring stability of democratic process both in its institutional and behavioural contexts as well as avoiding tendencies that will not only stunt the growth but also lead to decline in the quality of democracy.…”

“…The above views are in consonance with that of Ogundiya (2010) when he observed that the idea of democratic consolidation is about addressing the challenges of regime stabilisation and providing answer to the question as to when democracies are secure from breakdown. It also needs to be stated that contemporary scholars have often rely on Colliers categorisation of approaches to democratic consolidation (Ogundiya 2010;Onuoha 2010, Okotie, 2008. Accordingly, three approaches were discerned: actor centred which focussed on willingness of actors to act within democratic rules; event centred which has to do with elections or constitutional ratification and; the institutional consisting of both internal and external factors.…”

“…However, a broad classification of Collier's arguments still leads us to the behavioural and institutional requirements or contexts of democratic consolidation. To this extent, democratic consolidation can be seen as associated with regime legitimacy and nurturing the practice of democracy to attain high level of institutionalisation that makes democratic reversal or a relapse to authoritarian rule very difficult, if not almost impossible (Onuoha, 2010). It was also with this frame of mind that Linz and Stepan (1996) observed that democracy is consolidated when democratic practice, accepted by citizens and elites alike is "the only game in town".…”