Defection and Party Crisis in Nigeria

Abstract

Since the creation of political parties in Nigeria, it has been characterized by the issue of defection and party crisis. This had been accompanied by the role of democratic institutions in resolving the problems of defection and party crisis in Nigeria, having in mind that the structure of these democratic institutions could play a significant role in the consolidation of democracy. Hence, the study interrogates how weak democratic institution impacted on defection and party crisis which inversely affects democracy and also examined the link between defection and party crisis. The data was collected through documentary sources on the various indices of corruption, institutional quality, freedom and fragile state of different years from 2008-2017. The data was analyzed using the multi-regression analysis. The result shows that lack of peace, and security, corruption, and institutional quality had a negative impact on democracy. So the democratic institutions are weak to enforce the rule of law in the country that will guide the activities of politics in Nigeria. Thus, the study found out that the inter-party crisis leads to fractionalization and defection. We predicated our analysis on the structural-Marxism theoretical framework. Also, it recommends that the constitution should be re-written to ensure the proper definition of defection and ensure sanction and penalty for the bridge of these laws in society.

Keywords: Defection, weak institution, party crisis, political institution, political business.

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-8-06

Publication date: April 30^th 2019