Zoning Policy and the Development of Democracy in Nigeria's Fourth Republic

ABSTRACT
The word “Zoning” has dominated the present political struggle in Nigeria. To a reasonable degree, zoning has been omnipresent in the genesis of Nigeria’s politics right from the first Republic and influences the formation of government (both military and civilian), and has been a subject of debate amongst scholars. It is right to reaffirm that the intention of those who brought the idea of the zoning policy into Nigeria’s political space was to ensure fairness in the rotation of key political offices across the country, but the politics and contentions associated with the actual practice of it is something to worry about. This is due to the fact that Nigerian politics over the years have been played on the basis of ethnicity as zoning seems to be an arrangement made to favour a particular set of people, who by reason of numbers acclaimed to be the majority, as against those who are regarded as the minority. In fact, zoning has practically turned out to represent the interest of few elites, who want to perpetually remain in power, and it is also defined by them, against what the masses may consider zoning to be in the sense of justice and fairness. This research work examined zoning policy and the development of Nigeria's democracy in the fourth republic. The study's objective was to ascertain the impacts of zoning policy on Nigeria's democracy, national unity and party politics. The work was mainly qualitative, based on this; a historical research design anchored on an explanatory analysis was adopted. A secondary source of data collection was employed which includes; Textbooks, journals, government publications and internet. The study showed that though the zoning policy was meant to address the problems of imbalance and inadequate political representation among the nations constituting Nigeria, its application has been faulty and abused by those in the majority. Again, the abandonment of zoning policy has led to disintegration in the country. The work concluded that if zoning policy is legally entrenched, at least with the impact when used rightly, it will engender political stability and communal peaceful co-existence and thus, satisfy the needs of the minority and the aggrieved ethnic group. With this, the study therefore recommended that zoning policy should be enshrined in the constitution or enacted as an Act of the National Assembly, so as to ensure fairness and equity as noted by Rawl, and also to quench the unwholesome arguements on zoning policy being undemocratic and unconstitutional. This will help fight against the abandonment of zoning principles by political parties and politicians who jettison the zoning arrangement when it is not in their favour.