MORALITY AS THE FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION: THE NIGERIAN CONDITION By Damian Tersoo Anyam Ph.D and Terzungwe Inja Department of Religion and Philosophy, Benue State University Makurdi, Nigeria ABSTRACT Nigeria as a nation has spent all of its 50 years of political Independence searching for stable political leadership; in the course of this struggle, about 29 of these turbulent years were hijacked by military juntas whose so-called interventionist measures proved to do more harm than good. The people suffered so much during military governments that at a point the only cry that could be heard from the average man on the street was that democracy should be allowed to step unto the stage of our polity. Thus when in 1999 the door was opened for democracy to enter, the people were overwhelmed with joy and their hopes for a better life (with guarantees of rights and freedoms) was equally heightened. The paper has adopted a historical method to examine the first decade of uninterrupted democratic governance in Nigeria in order to ascertain whether the practice is in compliance with the most common ideals of democracy as a system of government and whether the aspirations of the people have been met. The paper found that there is still a long way to go in ensuring that Nigerians enjoy true democracy, and that immorality is the root of the problem. Hence the paper concludes that democracy without morality is not enough to move the country forward.