Abstract
Nigeria’s democratic experiment since the commencement of the Fourth Republic in 1999 was expected to consolidate democratic governance, strengthen accountability, promote citizen participation, and facilitate sustainable national development. However, the democratic process has increasingly become characterized by the commercialization of politics, elite domination, and the excessive monetization of political activities. This study examines the rise of political mercantilism in Nigeria and its implications for democratic consolidation and national development. Political mercantilism refers to a political order in which public offices, electoral processes, and state institutions are primarily utilized for private accumulation, patronage distribution, and elite economic interests rather than public service and democratic accountability. The study adopts the political economy approach as its theoretical framework and relies on qualitative analysis of secondary data sourced from scholarly journals, policy reports, books, newspapers, and official documents published between 2019 and 2026. Findings reveal that democratic politics in Nigeria has become heavily transactional through vote buying, political godfatherism, campaign financing manipulation, elite capture of political parties, abuse of state resources, and patron-client networks. The study further finds that political mercantilism undermines electoral integrity, weakens democratic institutions, promotes corruption, discourages ideological politics, and contributes to socio-economic underdevelopment. The article concludes that unless comprehensive institutional reforms, electoral accountability, anti-corruption enforcement, and civic reorientation are strengthened, democracy in Nigeria may continue to function largely as an avenue for elite economic accumulation rather than a mechanism for democratic governance and development.
Keywords: Democracy, Political Mercantilism, Vote Buying, Elite Politics, Corruption, Democratic Consolidation, Nigeria
DOI: www.doi.org/10.36349/fujpam.2026.v5i01.025
author/Oko Emmanuel Ekpo
journal/FUJPAM Vol. 5, No. 1
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