Political Ideology and Good Governance in Nigeria

Democracy entails policies in the way of discussions, debates, negotiations, consensus or compromises over how best to organize the states, nations or nation-states for the common wellbeing of the citizens at large. The essence of politics is the citizens’ interactions and interfacing over state or national issues with a view to finding common grounds, common understanding, over the state issues or problems. Such state problems fundamentally concern the basic functions of government in guaranteeing public safety of life and property, maintenance of law and order, ensuring citizens’ freedom, and the guarantee of justice to all the citizens under the law without exception.

Also read: Flooding Interventions and Management in Nigeria

Political ideology is very essential for political parties in communicating the uniqueness of each contending political party; its understanding of the state or national issues; and its intentions on how best to solve such issues so as to enable the electorates assess each contending party against others with a view to ascertaining the party with most authentic programmes of action for national progress and development. With the foregoing, it is evident that party politics promotes democracy, and party ideology defines the model of democracy a state or nation practices (Alapiki, 2014). Similarly, in the world of politics, the principal goal of every political party is to acquire political power through elections so as to control the machinery of state or national government. However, this feat can only be achieved through a well-articulated and clear-cut ideology that genuinely promises the desired good governance. Ideology does not only confer direction to political parties, but also ensures their uniqueness, and their viability as a means of realizing the state or national dream of peace, progress and development which are the hallmarks of good governance. Vassallo and Wilcox (2016) Ideology is, therefore, a distinguishing factor that emphasizes the existence of one party outside another, and hence where there exist more than one party, as in most democracies, each is known and identified with its unique ideology.

Government, as an arm of the state, is constitutionally bound to formulate and implement policies that will promote stability in the state. The ability of the government to accommodate public opinion in decision- making, implement such policies with intermittent evaluations to ensure compliance is vital. It is equally ideal to guarantee the principle of rule of law objectively as this will, in no doubt, promote peace in the society. Formulation and implementation of friendly policies will attract and encourage the citizens to participate both in economic and political activities freely within the confines of the state’s policies. The smooth operation of economic and political activities will ensure social order. Good governance equally accommodates aspects of a civil society inclusion as stated earlier. Salahodjaev, R. (2015) observed that,

Also read: Leadership Challenges and Development in Nigeria

Good governance establishes the rule of law, enforces contracts and agreement between the individuals, maintains law and order, guarantees security to the people, economizes on cost and resources, protects the government and properly delivers services to the society. It also determines an optimal size of the government and makes best possible use of government resources (2015:64). Implementing a roadmap or adopting a framework on a people-oriented policy by the succeeding administration, though on a different political platform, is an element of good governance. Rather than implementing good policies initiated by an opposition party, political office holders often jettison the implementation and completion of such policies or projects. This accounts for a high rate of abandoned projects scattered in all the nooks and crannies of the Nigerian nation. Governance requires all hands to be on deck. It entails the sum total of the ways in which individuals and government institutions manage their common affairs for the good of the state and the citizens.

Alaku Emeka

Peter Daniel (PhD)