Saudi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (SJHSS)
Volume-7 | Issue-04 | 110-121
Review Article
Class Politics in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic: Myths and Realities
Felix O. U. Oriakhi, Sylvester Odion-Akhaine
Published : April 10, 2022
Abstract
Mainstream and dominant global north-influenced social science scholarship in contemporary Nigeria dismisses the class factor in both socio-political engineering and scholarship as non-existent. While the chief priests of this brand of social science scholarship denies its liberal origins, undercurrents and ferments and claim to be neutral in its investigations, the dialectical-historical materialist method of social investigation prioritizes the class question. This study, an interrogation of the place of class in the politics of the Fourth Republic in Nigeria, examines the social forces which shape and direct current politics in the country, and why the country’s socio-economic, cultural and political development continue to fall into bouts of epilepsies and create a number of millions of citizens at the bottom level of society. But the study restates the fact that it may seemingly be unscientific for ultra-left thinking to centralize Nigerian politics mainly on class forces.