HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLICITY OF POLITICAL PARTIES’ CONTESTATION AND DISJOINTED IDEOLOGY IN NIGERIA, BETWEEN 1999-2015

Abstract

It is generally accepted among political pundits that political parties are very vital in any democratization process. In fact, political parties are given a privileged place in the practice of democracy and this is because democracy is unimaginable without parties. The enthronement of civilian rule in May 1999 heralded the multiplicity of political parties which are either ideologically sterile or indistinguishable in Nigeria. Multi-party system offers citizens a wide range of choices during elections. Findings indicate that political parties in Nigeria since 1999 have been non ideological in practice but merchantable in operation, cosmetic in outlook, and rent-seeking inclined. The paper argued that, over-bloated number of political parties in Nigeria poses daunting challenges for effective and successful election management; beyond this, the phenomenon constitutes a huge drain in the country’s finances as the cost of elections continues to skyrocket proportionately to the number of political parties. The Historical-descriptive design was adopted in this paper. Primary and secondary sources were used. The work was approached thematically and presented chronologically using orthodox historical method of narrative and analysis. Amongst other things, this paper expose the futile nature of multiple parties in Nigeria political context and recommended that, the formation of parties and political contestations should be defined purely by political ideology owing to the continuous abysmal performances of the parties during elections as well as the challenges to effective election management, pruning the number to a management size.