ABSTRACT:

The conventional notions on the relationship between democracy and development are that democracy accelerates development. Based on the Nigeria experience, this paper argues that both democracy and authoritarianism are social system based political ideologies that derives their character from the wider society, which is conservative. Thus, issues that characterised military autocracy; denial of human rights, corruption, mismanagement and poverty have continued to replicate in the nascent democracy from 1999 to date. It therefore postulates that the permeability of democratic-authoritarian boundaries makes for virus replication across regime typologies in an open political system.