Local Governance and Politics of Inclusiveness in a Democracy

Abstract

 Contemporary models of democracy are at best representative in nature as a result of the size of the modern state. This has the unfortunate side effect of ostracising the people, whose opportunity to actively participate in governance is reduced to the period of elections, thereby minimising harnessing the regular contributions of the people to democratic consolidation. Thus, there is the need to fashion out ways through which the contributions of the people can be garnered towards strengthening the developmental outcomes of democracy. The argument pursued in this paper is that the local government should be restructured in such a way that it will put governance in the hands of the people, thus returning to the original intention of democracy, as was obtained in its cradle Athens. This is possible at the local government level because the population therein is limited when compared to that of the state. Thus, this paper uses Nigeria as a case study to argue for the need to have smaller political institutions able to better accommodate the participation of the people. It is pointed out that the local government as we have it in Nigeria presently is dysfunctional as a result of the interference of the state and federal governments in the affairs of the local government. This has to be addressed leading to the devolution of more powers to the local government in Nigeria.