Accountability and Transparency Hurdles of Post Democratic Regime in Nigeria: Economic Implications

Abstract

With increasing activities of separatists and agitators for self independence taking a heavy toll on the sovereignty of Nigeria, more curiosity has once again been drawn to the accountability strength, transparency quality and the performance trend of the national economy under the post-1999 democratic dispensations in Nigeria. Given the country’s recent exit from economic recession, the scandalous strides of N9 trillion NNPC contracts still awaiting clarifications and the incumbent administration’s recent claim of N1.3 trillion worth of Capital projects execution in 2016, the study intends to substantiate graphically the complementary impact nature of Nigeria’s budget expenditures and her economic performances in the post 1999 democratic dispensations towards appreciating judgmentally, the quality of accountability possibly upheld during this period in the light of exceptional incidences of questionable transparency in public service. This approach will help shed more light into possible implications obtainable given the trend of the nation’s economic growth as witnessed during the years covered. The annual GDP growth rate statistics, annual GDP achieved (in US$), the US to Naira exchange rates, and the annual national Budget of Nigeria (emphasis on Recurrent and Capital Expenditures) as published by the World Bank Group for the years 1999 – 2016 were all adopted and holistically subjected to professional evaluation and assessment using graphics/charts so as to boost readers’ understandability. Evidence from the statistics shows that Nigeria is yet to appreciate the place of accountability, transparency, and absolute compliance to due process in the achievement and sustenance of upward geared economic growth. Further graphical evaluations carried out reveals that while the country’s annual budget figures continued to rise in trillions of Naira especially in the recurrent expenditures, little of this acclaimed effort is felt by the economy and Nigerians, thus depicting possible tendencies of mismanagement of public funds, intransparenvy and poor accountability approach to the same. The study has as a result proffered several antigens to these visible lapses that has since 1999 left Nigeria struggling atop corruption perception index table of Transparency International (TI).