Abstract:
Upon independence in 1960 Nigeria had witnessed democratic regimes which were intermittently interrupted. This has been through military coup de tat since 1966 when the first democratic government was overthrown. Nigeria has had twenty one years of unbroken democratic stability since her Fourth Republic, from May 29, 1999 to date, after about 16 years (1983- 1999) of military occupation and usurpation. Nigeria's Fourth Republic has more often than not experienced incessant conflict amongst the three arms of government regrettably at all the tiers of government. The most notable which also is the focus of this research is the conflict between the executive and legislative arms of government at federal level. The objective of this study is to: examine the nature of interaction between executive and legislature in Nigeria's Fourth Republic that fuel conflict; probe the factors responsible for executive-legislature conflict in Nigeria's Fourth Republic and assess the positive and negative impacts of executive-legislature conflict in Nigeria. Simple percentage and standard deviation tools were used to analyse the data gathered. Worried about the future of democracy in Nigeria, the paper concludes with the suggestions that respect and strictly adherence to the tenets of the principles of separation of powers, regular capacity building on basic conflict resolution and management training with a view to improving their conflict management skills as well as their problem solving skills be constantly ensured among others. This is because it has led to low productivity and heightened tension in the polity.
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