The Political Class as a Threat to Democracy in Nigera's Fourth Republic

The quest by Nigeria to make appreciable progress in her democratic journey has been a herculean task. This is due the antidemocratic actions of the political class This article aims at identifying how actions of the political class act as a backward clog to democratic growth in the country. Crucial among the causative factors is the fact that its political class decelerate the country's democracy by their abysmal display of undemocratic tendencies. They perpetrate these through a several ways which include: godfatherism, succession crises and abuse of incumbency, electoral malpractices, electoral violence, political alienation, travesty of justice, recourse to primordial cleavages, corruption and inconsistent policy inconsistency, human rights abuse, to mention but some... This article is qualitative. It argues that there is need to make reform in the Electoral Act and strengthen the anti-corruption crusade in order to check the excesses of the political class and record fundamental gains in Nigeria's democratic experience.