Events in the current democratic dispensation in Nigeria indicate that a majority of our public office holders who rode to power through the ballot box habour distorted notions about democracy, which is the globally accepted system of government. Many, also, do not have rudimentary knowledge of the workings of a modern state. There lies the reason for the constant flux Nigeria has been experiencing since it adopted democracy as its mode of governance.
Some governors and legislators in the federal and state levels are found to have displayed crass ignorance of the tenets of a democratic government to the amazement of the people. We image a situation where many of the public office holders exhibit a sickening lack of knowledge of government, its arms, their roles and hierarchy. An example is a former state house of assembly speaker who referred to a governor as his “oga”, meaning that he was subordinate to the governor. Contrary to this, the subject of government, which is taught in the secondary school, points out to us that the three arms of government, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary operate on the same level. There is the principle of separation of powers which is inbuilt in a democracy to ensure checks and balances and prevent absolutism.
It is unlikely that the speaker in that frame of mind would muster courage to carry out an impeachment process on a malfeasant governor, thereby giving such a governor an open cheque to revel in impunity, aware that no one has the liver to question his actions.
What else do we attribute this sordid situation to than the preponderance of persons who could only pass as semi-literate in our political arena? The evidence of this is in the number of certificate forgery cases that daily inundate the courts during and after elections.
Among the younger generation of Nigerians, there is the concept that a good politician is one who is able to, as much as possible, hoodwink the people into voting for him, and who also possesses the ability to keep deceiving the people for the period he remains in power. Only a few, if any, see politics as a game that ought to sieve the bunch and bring out the best hands to manage the affairs of the state on public trust.
Perhaps the long years of military rule has internalized in the average Nigerian the belief that government must be run on the basis of impunity rather than the rule of law. Aware of this damage done to the Nigerians, former military president of the country, General Ibrahim Babangida, on toppling the government in 1985, changed his nomenclature from Head of State to President to reflect a democratic sense as he planned his timetable for transition to democracy. He also instituted a Centre for Democratic Studies where aspirants to public offices were trained to be good democrats and public affairs administrators.
Our people, both in and out of government need to understand that a vast difference exists between democracy and other forms of government such as monarchy, autocracy, oligarchy, and even theocracy. We must know that feudalism, which permits a few lords in the society to own the resources of wealth and determine who gets what on the basis of loyalty to them, is to democracy what oil is to water. They do not mix. Impunity arises from the perception that in a democracy the winner of the majority votes has acquired the proverbial knife and yam, and must cut the yam according to his whim. Does democracy permit trampling upon minority rights? If so, how do small states that are part of a gigantic federation like the United States of America, which is the bastion of democracy, survive? How did President Donald Trump come to power despite that he was not the one that won the majority of votes in the 2016 presidential polls in America?
It is depressing to note that the older the nation grows the worse the situation gets, and the more our politicians practice impunity in the guise of democracy, or what they refer to as “homegrown democracy”. An adage often attributed to Thomas Jefferson says that when government fears the people, there is liberty, but when the people fear the government, there is tyranny. It is time to alert the international community that despots in the African continent on the whole now hide under the cloak of democracy to practice their despotism.
Nigeria’s political field appears to have been infiltrated by crooks that see it as an avenue to amass stupendous wealth or to make attempts to clean up their dirty pasts. These people, most of who did not pass through formal education, railroad themselves into power, refusing to either learn the fundamentals of democracy or implement its principles.
The entire scenario awakens the need to revive the Centre for Democratic Studies while also making it compulsory for political aspirants to show certificates of having passed through the centre before they are allowed to stand for contests. For the purpose of catching them young, government, as a subject, should be thought vigorously alongside civics in our schools to get the younger generation acquainted with the roles and functions of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, the meaning of separation of powers, the limits of the arms, among others. Emphasis should, in addition, be laid on political, and management-relate subjects such as history and economics. Oftentimes we lament the economic downturn of the nation, forgetting that some of the powerful people in government in whose hands we entrusted the economy know little or nothing about micro- let alone macro-economics.
The nation must quickly review the law that bars tested technocrats from political contests except they resign from their jobs. A professor or lecturer in the university, a journalist or broadcaster of repute, a top civil servant that knows his onions, a company worker, among others, should be able to take leave of absence from the work place to stand in a political contest. If he or she fails, or in the event of the completion of his or her tenure, the law should permit him or her to return to his job unperturbed.
This arrangement has the potentials of forestalling corruption if an errant public office holder is made to forfeit his terminal benefits at his primary workplace. The uncertainty of elections and the thought of life after a failed attempt help to scare our best brains away from the soapbox as many of them would be reluctant to quit their comfort zones to join politics. Such a liberalization of partisan politics affords the electorate a wide range of choice of capable candidates. On the other hand, limiting the political space to the jobless and inexperienced members of the society only leaves us contending with incompetence in policy formulation.
It is time we began to examine whether we are truly practicing a democracy while we are yet to operate a constitution written by representatives of the people, and whether our kind of federalism is what the world knows as federalism and whether it is truly compatible with democracy.
Democracy, certainly, does not end in the ballot box. Our politicians must know this.
“Some governors and legislators in the federal and state levels are found to have displayed crass ignorance of the tenets of a democratic government to the amazement of the people. We image a situation where many of the public office holders exhibit a sickening lack of knowledge of government, its arms, their roles and hierarchy. An example is a former state house of assembly speaker who referred to a governor as his “oga”, meaning that he was subordinate to the governor”
