Challenges of Democracy in Nigerian Local Government System: A Critical Analysis

After two decades of the return to civil rule, the not too impressive scorecard of Nigerian democracy has raised concerns and questions demanding answers as to why the country is still struggling with the delivery of democratic governance and dividends such as; social welfare, justice, even-federal development as well as equal access to national resources. The paper inspects carefully, those factors that have and are hindering the success of democracy and democratic governance in Nigeria especially at the local government level. In doing this, related literatures were reviewed while the Structural Functionalist theory is adopted as the theoretical model or frame work and the collection of data was carried out through the secondary source. The study reveals that democracy in Nigeria especially at the local government level has not done up to its expectation due largely to corruption, partisan politics, upper governmental interference, lack of local government autonomy, among others. It therefore recommends that among other things, the local governments should be granted it constitutional autonomy in powers and functions, the fight against corruption should be stretched to the local government areas while Local government officials are made accountable to the local residence and that the leaders should be more ethical in their political pursue