The Reality of Sovereignty in Nigeria from 1999 to 2019 and the Implications For Democracy (Published)
The year 2019 marks two decades of the Nigeria’s democratic governance which in Nigeria Political parlance is referred to as the fourth republic. The first republic which started on the attainment of independence in 1960 was truncated by the military in 1966 and from that time till the 29th of May, 1999 when the military was coerced to relinquish power, Nigeria did not pretend in her clamour for democracy .The democratically elected government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1979-1984) was equally overthrown by the military in Nigeria. From Independence in 1960 to 1999, a period of 39 years, Nigeria had eight military head of state in government for a total of twenty-nine (29) years with only two civilian head of states. The compass of this present democratic experience midwifed by the 1999 Constitution is that Sovereignty belongs to the people. The reality of the sovereignty is the focus of this study. The study revealed that the actual voters in Nigeria with a population of over two hundred million people are the judges and not the people .That judges are the determinant of the representatives of people is anachronistic considering the fact that the judges in Nigeria are guided by their idiosyncrasies and not logic in their role as the interpreter of law and adjudicator.
Keywords: Democracy, Logic, Sovereignty., electorate