Governance and defense sector management in Nigeria: X-raying legislative oversight of the defense sector

Nigeria’s fledgling democratic experiment requires a security sector that is under the watchdog of a legislative body, as the nature and character of a nation’s security sector are critical to the establishment of democratic values and ethos in a polity. Largely, the logic of operation and responsiveness of the security sector of any nation is a function of the quality of governance by the executive and the oversight functions exercised by the representatives of the people as legislatures, as it concerns military procurement and logistics, and double faced-operations in the face of rising security threats. This study decomposed governance into executive control and legislative oversight governance. This study adopted the Rational Actor Model to interrogate governance and defense sector management in Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design to elicit data from 40 respondents drawn from members of the national assembly, the security forces, serving and former members of both the House committee on defense and the Senate committee on defense. Judgmental sampling technique was deployed to ensure the right respondents were surveyed using structured questionnaire of 5 point Likert scale and for content validity and reliability. Finding from this study submitted that legislative oversights and executive governance do not have significant effects on defense management in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that legislature should push for a Security Sector Reform that will bring the defence sector into the basket of accountability via transparent budgetary. The study also recommends that the executive should ensure the accountant General and the Auditor General of the Federation apply all measures to ensure accountability of the Defence and security sector as seen done in developed clime where the military are grossly accountable to civil structure and not an instrument of power perpetuation.