Like most governments all over the world, the Nigerian Government has found it expedient to entrust certain task to administrative bodies as distinct from the civil service. Of these administrative bodies are regulatory agencies who are independent bodies and are vested with powers to oversee and regulate activities in various sectors of the economy. To strike a balance between the independence of these regulatory agencies and ensure that they do not become arbitrary in carrying out their mandate, Nigerian law provides for democratic control of these regulatory agencies by putting them under the supervision of designated ministers. Using a doctrinal method, this paper examines the powers and functions of regulatory agencies and the democratic control mechanism of supervising ministers and finds that these democratic control mechanisms have been applied by the ministers in a manner that seems more like interference rather than checking the excesses of regulatory agencies. The paper concludes by demonstrating that these interferences have watered down the independence and effectiveness of regulatory agencies and have caused the substitution of the discretion of the governing board and management team in matters within their jurisdiction for the directives of the ministers. The paper recommends that, directives of ministers to regulatory agencies should always be in writing and be made public and regulatory agencies should have the discretion to refuse specific directives that amount to interference or, in the alternative, refer such directives to a neutral third party for determination of its arbitrariness or otherwise.