This volume of the Annals of the Academy comprises a selection of the papers presented at sessions of the convocations of the Academy in 2009 and 2010. As usual the Academy at the two convocations focused on issucs that are critical to the development of the state and society in Nigeria in particular; and in Africa in general. The 2009 convocation addressed the theme of Religion and Morality in Nigeria. In 2010 the Academy shifted its attention to assessing Fifty Years of Humanistic studies in Nigeria. As out' president remarked in his address (201 0) we believe in the vital roles of the...

The Academy chose to deliberate on the subject of elections because elections are a crucial means of choosing individuals who could legitimately be Society's representatives in the processes of managing the affairs of the nation. Democratic governance is an arrangement in which Society or the people own the government of the nation- state and in which the government acts on behalf of, and for the people. Democracy is people-centred. In Nigeria, as in many other parts of Africa, democracy has had a chequered history, and remains fragile. Part of the explanation has been that dominant political...