Incorporation of Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitutions of Emerging Democracies: A Beneficial Wrongdoing or a Democratic Demagoguery?

Abstract

It is trite that sovereignty belongs to the people. Thus, the realization that the donors of power: The people or the citizens have some rights against the state, and the need to respond to their desires and demands by satisfying them, ensured the enshrinement of citizens’ rights in the constitution as either fundamental rights or fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. This paper examined the incorporation of the second class of rights in the constitutions of developing democracies such as Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone with a view of searching the rationale and jurisprudence of their incorporation in view of their non-enforceable status. It found that the continuous non-enforceability of fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy in the constitutions of these countries render them more of a democratic demagoguery incapable of furthering the aims of good governance and sustainable development anchored on the social contract between the government and the governed. The paper however recommended that Nigerian court should adopt the posture of judicial activism in interpreting the rights contained in Chapter two of the constitution to bring them in consonance with the civil and political rights, which are enforceable.