GOOD GOVERNANCE AND CITIZENS’ WELL-BEING.

This paper examined good governance as a panacea for the citizens’ well-being. The well-being of the citizens is the essence of government. In other words, government exists to ensure the well-being of the citizens. The well-being of the citizens can only be assured and guaranteed when there is good governance and reverse would be case in the midst of bad governance. Of all the forms of government, democracy has the greatest potential to offer good governance because it is people’s government and as such people have greater opportunity to participate one way or the other in the governance process making it possible for them to influence decisions that would be to their favor. It therefore means that for good governance to be enthroned in a polity; the people have great responsibility to bring it about by not being docile but to be seriously interested in participating in the governance process and system. Secondary method of data collection was adopted in this paper and analysis of data collected was done through the descriptive method. The paper found out that bad governance is responsible for the lack of the citizen’s well-being. The theoretical framework adopted in this paper is structural functionalism. The paper recommended among other things that for the well-being of the citizens to be guaranteed there should be the encouragement of good governance by all and sundry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]