Abstract:
Following the late 1990s as the third wave democracy swept across Africa, discourses on democracy and the social construction of capacity for anti-corruption governance in Nigeria, Africa's largest democracy have rarely taken a critical comparative perspective. The study moves from broad descriptive analysis, with comparisons over time on corruption issues in the Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations to a more intensive analytic investigation using comparative case analysis methods. We reviewed composite data on corruption in Nigeria from the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) between 1999 to 2015 and data on capacity for governance from the World Governance Indicator (WGI). Findings suggest that both administrations lacked the capacity to mitigate corruption. Alternatively, the paper argues that capacity for anti -corruption governance has been a substantial clog to democracy deepening and concludes that the current conduct of governance, power play and the social dynamics of politics should be revisited.
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