ABSTRACT
The study focuses on a contextual analysis of the greatest happiness to the greatest number within the context of the Nigerian experience spanning between 1999 and 2009. Consequently, this study investigated whether the character of the Nigerian ruling class has undermined the utilitarian principle of the greatest good of the greatest number. The study employed the qualitative method of data collection and the qualitative descriptive method of data analysis. The ex-post-facto single case research design was used to showcase the structural interface in the relationship between the variables under study. Guided by the theory of utilitarianism of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the study found out the that lack of accountability and endemic corruption was a pastime of the ruling class which defines the character of the state. Also, the state should de emphasize the over reliance on comprador capital and focus on national capital formation and aggregation as the panacea to place Nigeria on the path to industrialization and sustainable development It therefore recommends that functions and not forms should be strengthened. These in turn will promote good governance and accountability. Furthermore, there is need to restructure the state and its agencies and make them more efficient and socially responsible in the provision of social welfare services.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Abstract
Table of contents
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
1.2 Statement of the Problem
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1.4 Significance of the Study
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
2.1 The Character of the Nigerian Ruling Class and the Utilitarian Principle of the Greatest Good of the Greatest Number
2.2 Governmental Institutional Weakness in Nigeria and the Delivery of Democratic Dividends
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Theoretical Framework
3.2 Hypotheses
3.3 Research Design
3.4 Methods of Data Collection
3.5 Methods of Data Analysis
CHAPTER FOUR: THE NIGERIAN RULING CLASS AND UTILITARIAN PRINCIPLE OF THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER
4.1 Corruption
4.2 Unproductive Class
4.3 Lack of Discipline
CHAPTER FIVE: THE WEAKNESSES IN GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN NIGERIAN AND THE DELIVERY OF DEMOCRATIC DIVIDENDS
5.1 Weak policy implementation mechanism
5.2 Capacity to formulate, implement and manage resources efficiently
5.3 Lack of accountability and transparency
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION
6.1 Summary and Conclusion
6.2 Recommendations
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The way men should organize themselves into an ordered collectivity has always been a puzzle and it has therefore occupied a central place in political philosophy since antiquity like the way it features in the writings of modem social and political theorists. We however see this puzzle as the main kernel of politics. And this is because to develop a form of governance among a collectivity of individuals in a given community, there will be some intense pressure especially when different social groups come into conflict in the process of social production and over the distribution of scarce resources. History is replete with ideas about the state and like the way history had been interpreted in different ways so the ideas about the state had developed in diverse versions. Nigeria state is a creation of British colonialism and the British institutionalized colonial rule in order to protect her capital and to use the colonial state as the servant of imperialism. It was also to protect all those metropolitan interests which owed their existence to the continuance of imperialism (Ekundare, 1973; Toyo, 2002).
The Nigeria state was therefore, not a product of antagonistic interests among social classes, i.e., the Nigerian state did not emerge because of lack of unity of interests among social classes in the society nor because the society was divided by irreconcilable contradictions. Indeed, the Nigerian state was not an instrument of any indigenous social class that developed to mediate between social classes whose interests were irreconcilable. The Nigeria state was basically an agent of imperialism, an instrument of economic exploitation (Ekwekwe, 1986).
Immediately after independence in 1960, the class character of the nationalist leaders began to show in their activities particularly when they began to assume political positions of authority. The masses were confronted with an indigenous ruling class which was content to inherit the colonial economy with no aim of transforming it (Ekwekwe, 1986). Nigeria began to evolve a political class, a class that was made up of those who took over from the colonial state hierarchy. Members of the class were mere agents of western capital who came to power to execute policies that were necessarily geared towards promoting the interest of metropolitan bourgeoisie like the way the colonial state did ( Drake, 2010).
Historically, the struggle among social classes for the control of state power has been the propelling force in the development of many societies. Development here is taken to mean qualitative change in the productive forces and production relations that give rise to the production of more goods, creation of needs and ways of meeting such needs. In the process of production, consumption and distribution of material values in the society, such as food, shelter, clothes etc, and people get polarized into major two contending classes over the ownership and control of the means of production. On the one hand are those who own and control the means of production are member of the bourgeois class, while on the other are those that have no means of production and are member of the oppressed/proletarian class, before colonial era, Nigeria has witnessed this emergence of class struggle, some families are more famous than others and thereby determines the running and directional operation of the state (Adilieje et al, 2012).
The basis of the struggle between the two classes is the control of the state so as to determine social policies especially, the authoritative allocation of values and scarce resources. This type of political class emerged in 1960 after Nigeria independence. While the oppressed class agitates for a new social order that ensure fairly equitable distribution of resources, the bourgeois class preoccupies itself with maintaining their class advantage. Since the ruling class does not willingly surrender power, in other words not prepared to commit class suicide, it has to be compelled to do so through intense struggle and violence. Such agitations and struggles results in class conflicts, this class struggle may lead to the overthrow of the ruling class or compel it to embark on reforms such as increase in wages, welfare, bonuses, political liberties, democratic participation in industrial affairs etc. (Bangura 1985; cited in Adilieje, et al, 2012). It was this class conflict that transformed Nigeria from pre-colonial to colonial and the present neocolonial capitalist modes of production.
Hence, the resistance against the imposition of capitalist relations of production. the independence struggles, the Anglo- Nigeria defence pact imbroglio, the Anti-Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) riot, the struggle for the democratization of the state in Nigeria, the face-off between the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) cum the people of Nigeria and the Nigeria ruling class over the pump price of petroleum and other aspects of bad governance are some of the conflicts occasioned by the exploitation and subordination of one class by another. The conflicts and struggles generated by the various contradictory class relations over the control of state power have led to structural transformation or changes in Nigeria social system thus propel one form of development to another (Adilieje et al, 2012).....
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