Federalism, Democracy and Constitutionalism: The Nigerian Experience

Abstract

A great democracy must either sacrifice self-government to unity or Preserve it by federalism. The co-existence of several Nations under same state is a test, as well as tshe best security of its freedom. Federalism has been described as the best form of governmental organization capable of accommodating diversities of interest. Federalism, democracy and constitutionalism all have their underlying characteristics and their advocates employed them as a measuring tool in ascertaining the extent on which individual states conformity or nonconformity. In this article, we examined these basic and related concepts after which we examined these features as provided in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria so as to measure the extent of her conformity or non conformity with these principles in practice and made some recommendations that will further upgrade her to the level of modern advanced federations.

Keywords: Federalism, Federal Principles, Democracy, constitutionalism, rule of law.