Wagner’s Theory and Good Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Nigeria’s Second and Fourth Republic Regimes

Abstract

Abstract Traditionally, the essence of a republican state is to uphold civic virtue, serve the interests of the entire citizens and guarantee social welfare through the precepts of good governance. This by implication suggests that, unarguably, good governance gives effects to the law of increasing state activities for the purposes of ensuring short term benefit (economic growth) and long term benefit (economic development). However, the Nigerian state is very far from reaping any of the benefits; especially, the latter one. This therefore raises concerns on the inherent efficacy of Wagner’s theory in offering opportunities that guarantee and improve on the general welfare of the Nigerian society. Consequently, this study sets out to compare the exactitude of Wagner’s theory and good governance in the Nigeria’s second republic (1979–1983) and the first five years of fourth republic (1999–2003). In specific terms, it seeks to empirically establish how increase in government capital and recurrent has exacted impacts on and related with the effective and efficient quality of good governance, proxied by eight development indicators, GDP per capita, literacy rate (secondary school enrolment), national poverty, life expectancy at birth, and exchange rate. For analytical purposes, descriptive statistical tools, correction, coefficient of variation and econometric method of ordinary least squares are employed. Comparatively, Wagner’s theory did not have exact impact on good governance indices as measured in this study. It is recommended that government should settle in programmes and policies used in the second republic. JEL Classification: D63, E24, H11, H51, H52, I11, I21, I31