A Publication of Department of Political Science and International Relations
Journal VOL. 4 NO. 1, June. 2025, ISSN: 2714 - 4054
Political Party Manifestos, platforms and Programmes: The Nigeria Perspective 2019-2023
Dakusuk Markus Jimwan, Apat Kiden Tanimu
ABSTRACT
Political party manifestos and programmes have long been important primary documents of political parties in established democracies all over the world. Indeed, they are meaningful sources of information regarding party’s position on a wide range of developmental issues. Certainly, the idea that political parties provide the voters with an outline of their policy plans in their manifestos before election lies at the heart of mandate models of representative democracies. Political parties through their manifestos and programmes, enable voters to generate a plurality of opinions in policy debate, elaborate projects or proposals for society, and transform policy options into political decision. This study relied on documentary research design and relied on secondary data drawn from arrays of documents. Saliency competitive theory was adopted and reviewed to explain the subject matter. The study adopted content analysis in its approach to the study. The analysis was synthesized through scholarly works from books, published journals and internet. The study recommended that it is incumbent on every political party to ensure that manifestos and programmes are carefully and adequately designed and written in a more coherent manner, unadorned language to enable voters understand the broad policy frame that a party intends to pursue when in office.
Keywords: Party, manifesto, platform, programmes