Political Parties And Internal Party Democracy In Nigeria's Fourth Republic.

Abstract

Political parties are veritable and indispensable institutions in a democratic society. The functions of political parties are central to the operations of democracy. Some of the functions are interest articulation and aggregation, facilitating popular participation through elections, citizenship education, representation and political recruitment, opposition etc (Duverger 1954, Downs, 1957; Disraeli, 2009).

Nigerian political parties have been confronted by many challenges due to their level of internal democracy, which weakens their expected roles in democratic politics. In Nigeria, an overwhelming clamour for the enforcement of the doctrines of internal democracy exists among the  political parties. This is  especially with respect to the way and manner  primary elections are being conducted. This results in electoral malpractices at the general elections. There is much evidence that many Nigerians are of the view that internal democracy boosts the integrity of elections and advance the quality of leadership, political stability, legitimacy and economic development (Momoh, 2010; Omolusi, 2013).