Contractocracy

There are several dissimilarities, however, between classical Underdevelopment Theory and some of the leading theoreticians of the contractocracy school in Nigeria.

The contract syndrome became so prevalent that the then Governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, felt compelled to characterise the Nigerian polity in terms of a "contractocracy" : "Instead of a democracy -in which you have in operation government for the people, you have a contractocracy in which government is for contractors, by contractors and of contractors."

Yusuf Bangura argues that the contractocracy thesis merely falls within what he called "third option" explanation.