Public Opinion and Democratic Decision Making in Nigeria

Abstract

While“Public”referred to common interest and common good, it isalso usedinterchangeably to explain Public Opinion in democratic decision.  Therefore, the term “Public” from the Latin wordPublicus meaning “the people”. In other words, it could be referred to “common access”with area open to the general population deemed public (Habermas, 1962,1989cited in the sage Handbook of Public Opinion Research 2007).  Opinion was first considered as popular concept in democratic decision in the work of JeremyBentham. Bentham then was much concerned with people’s reaction to government policy with utmost benefits derivation. This writing is synonymous to Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill.And these sets of analystsalso believe that certain people’s interests were more important to other in the society. The major concerned area of ourdiscussion focused on how to design workable preferences for able representation to triumph in the process of reliable policies that reflect the popular interest of citizen. In his discussion of descriptive representation, Stuart andChristopher narrowed down the contestable clauses of public opinion to some explicit adjectives while furtherstressing the focus of research on representative characters, such as the extent to which representative resemble the represented, interm of demographic characteristics, race, ethnicity, gender, language, sexual orientation and added to these in Nigeria is the experience of colonialism that loom large. A number of theories according to Stuart and Christopher referred to this type of representation as “microcosmic representation” cited Birth 1971, 2001.

Public Opinion and democratic decision making in Nigeria governance and administration principally involved all the units, size, population and structure that composed federal government. The resources which serve as the life wire of the country are naturally available in abundance, such as limestone, coal, tin, columbite, iron, ore Gold, silver and zinc. The country also has natural gas and it is one of the world’s major producers of petroleum. Agricultural products also flourish well in most part of the country in relation to the types of crop and vegetable applicable to such environment, this explain why groundnut, beans, maize are well found in the North and firm product like palm oil, cocoa and coffee are also more available in the Southern part of Nigeria. The climates are of two distinct seasons, the dry season and the rainy season. In essence, the climate is equatorial in the South, tropical in the center and avid in the North of the Country.

The country (Nigeria) of about 923,768 square kilometers is surrounded by or shared boundaries with five major countries with Cameroon (1690km) and Chad (87km) to the east, Benin (773km) to the west, Niger (1,496km) to the North and the Atlantic Ocean (853km) to the South. The country’s typical outlook and its natural characteristics had obviously conditioned its social and political stratification. Worthy of mention are about 250 different ethnic groups identified on the basis of distinct languages in the country of close to 20 million populations. The Hausa – Fulani in the northern part of the country are about 29 percent, the Yoruba in the West are 21 percent and the Igbo in the eastern part are 18 percent of the total population.

Among these ethnic cleavages, there is religious interlude of predominantly Muslims among the Hausa – Fulani reside with exception of Middle belt in the north that are mixed up with Christians. The Yoruba in the South – West are comprised of Muslims and Christians while Igbo in the South – East are predominantly Christians. In a nutshell, 50 percent of the country are Muslims, 40 percent are Christians and the remaining 10 percent are traditional believers. Much of their public interest could be viewed on geographical contingencies: social,religion,economic and political affinity.Politicaladministrative set up involved three major levels of government which are Federal, State, and Local Government. The States in Nigeria comprises 36, with 774 Local Governments as well as 8,810 political wards within the ethnic groups aforementioned. In the aspect of power classification between the three levels of government i.e. Federal, State and Local Government, about 66 items were specified for Exclusive list, (meant for the Federal Government to legislate), 44 are concurrent meant for both Federal and State. The fiscal power sharing mechanisms which should guarantee the smooth and orderly running of government is frequently changing at the will and caprices of Federal Government discretion.