POLITICAL PARTIES AND LEADERSHIP RECRUITMENT IN NIGERIA SINCE 1999

Since 1999, Nigeria has practiced a multiparty system under a presidential system of government. Multiparty democracy takes its roots from western liberal democracy which believes in the idea that several parties are needed in order to broaden both political participation as well as leadership recruitment. Under this framework, that of liberal democracy, leadership recruitment is often classed based, elitist and often isolated from the ordinary people or masses. This background underpins the nature of the character of leadership recruitment in Nigeria in the sense that Nigeria as a nation state is a neo-colonial creation and so also the political class that provides leadership at all strata of society.