NJIKO: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal of Humanities, Law, Education and Social Sciences

This paper examines John Dewey’s theory of democracy as a system of values in relation to Nigeria’s democracy. It holds that the motivation for the shift to democracy by most nations in the contemporary era is underwritten by the fact that as a system of government, democracy promotes liberty, freedom, equality, justice, uplifts standard of living and allows for majority of the citizenry to participate in government policies and decision-making. While this appears sacrosanct or seems to be a given in many developed democratic countries, it is not the same for many democratic countries in Africa, especially Nigeria. The periods of intermittent democratic practice in Nigeria from 1960 to 1966, 1979-1983, and 1999 to date in Nigeria, for instance, show that the country still contends with terrorism, authoritarianism, anachronism, bad governance, lack of social justice, disobedience to the rule of law, poor resource distribution, harsh socio-economic living conditions, abysmal infringements on human rights and freedom as well as inability to sustain human and humane values for proper social living for common good in the polity. Thus, the problem is that the principles of democracy are merely theoretical and are unable to be translated into practice in the Nigeria democratic system. The finding is that there exists a dislocation which is both paradoxical and contradictory between the values of democracy and the actual living conditions of the majority of the citizenry of Nigeria, and so the recommendation is that Dewey’s conception of democracy which upholds the articulation of the social, moral and humane values of democracy should be explored for the r

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