Issues in the Constitutional Design of a Third Nigerian Republic

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Periodical article

Title:	Issues in the Constitutional Design of a Third Nigerian Republic
Author:	Diamond, Larry
Year:	1987
Periodical:	African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:	86
Issue:	343
Period:	April
Pages:	209-226
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	democracy constitutional reform Politics and Government Law, Human Rights and Violence
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/722472
Abstract:	Previous democratic failures in Nigeria have heavily involved the abuse of power and desecration of the rules of the democratic game. A central purpose of constitutional design must therefore be to check, balance and decentralize political power as extensively and innovatively as possible, and hence to reduce both the stakes in any electoral contest and the scope for behavioural abuses. Constitutional engineering should focus on this basic problem for while constitutional innovations alone cannot solve the problems facing democracy in Nigeria, they can compensate for some of the weaknesses in the social structure and political environment. Notes, ref. (Comments by Rotimi T. Suberu and A.A. Akinola in Afr. Aff., vol. 87, no. 348 (1988); p. 431-445).