DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ITS PERFORMANCE ON NIGERIA ECONOMY

The symbiotic relationship between democracy, good governance and development are globally acclaimed. This is borne out of the belief that democracy premised on the principle of the rule of law, and constitutionalism is capable of ushering in good governance and societal development. It is equally believed that democracy conforms to the principle of justice, equity and fair-play; hence, it is prerequisite for development in Nigeria. An attempt has been made to analyze the impact of democracy on Economic development proxy by Human Development Index (HDI) in the Nigerian economy. A comparative and descriptive analysis of economic growth with key development indicators were carried out on Nigerian economy during the military and democratic dispensations. An OLS technique was also adopted to establish and test the impact of democracy on economic development (proxy for Human Development Index) in Nigeria. The result of the descriptive analyses indicates that the average GDP during democracy was by far higher than that of the military era but this high boom was not able to reduce unemployment, poverty and corruption during the democratic regime, whereas, the coefficients of unemployment, poverty and corruption during the military regime were relatively very low. From the regression results, the coefficients of the dummy variables were negative implying that, it was the military regime that really impacted on the Human Development Index proxies for development. Therefore, we can convincingly assert that the long existing findings in the literature that democracy is prerequisite for development in Nigeria may no longer be popular because our findings have emerged and contradicted the position of this perception. For instance, countries like Chile, South-Korea, Japan, China and other Asian countries have recorded high level of developmental stride; yet, they are less politically open states. This study has come to revalidate the argument that democracy is not prerequisite for development in Nigeria