Democracy ought to refer to ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people. By this simple definition, a layman can easily comprehend the meaning of the meaning of this. A system of government whereby people or citizens of a country elect a government by themselves to protect and assist them in realizing their life dreams and expectations. But can we say we are practising this in Nigeria?
Democracy in Nigeria has since changed to the government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians only. Just look around you and see. There is no manifestation of democracy on the faces of the masses, the have-nots, the down trodden, the masses despite the noises about democracy and its invincible dividends, they are still wallowing in abject poverty, squalor, hunger, disease, underemployment, and other nefarious man-made problems. How else can one explain the bloated salaries allotted to the high ranking public officers and the servants are being owed many months of pay despite the meagre amount?
Even the educated ones among the masses, graduates of various fields of ten to twenty years in service aren’t even enjoying the dividend of the so called democracy. This is because the salaries of the so called educated man are struggling to meet up with the demands of the society. Majority of government facilities enjoyed by the masses such as portable drinking water, electricity, good health care system, free education etc. are all a story of the past. The common man has even become his own government, providing power, security, water and so on by himself.
From 1999, since the civilians took over governance under a democratic arrangement, we have suffered progressive deterioration of not only the country’s infrastructural network, practically all our institutions critical to socio-political and democratic advancement have collapsed. Even governance itself is grinding to a halt.
What is evident beyond any dispute is that most politicians, especially of the ruling elite have no positive idea what democracy is about, and it is debatable whether they have any clear cut plan for moving the nation forward. If our experience thus far is the benchmark, then we won’t be wrong to say that for the current breed of politicians in power, democracy is a government of the privileged few for the benefit of themselves, their families and their friends. The democracy we practise here at this point in time is one that fosters the most despicable level of corruption ever known in Nigeria since independence. It is choking the life out of majority of Nigerians.
Therefore, as far as an ordinary Nigerians are concerned, democracy is not for them, but for the politicians and their cronies. The masses are yet reap any dividend if ever there is any, of their democracy. What the masses are expecting to see is genuine, real and concrete improvement in their standard of living, and not fleet of foreign flash luxury cars, mansions and paraphernalia. We are tired of empty promises, rhetoric propaganda and long grammar. We need to see action, real action and not deception. Let the masses see the dividend of democracy on ground; we want to see it with our naked eyes, not on paper or on TV screen.
It is high time we stop living in a world of illusion, deception, hypocrisy or hide and seek game. We should face reality and stop deceiving ourselves. The world is changing very fast, some smaller counties, less endowed than Nigeria have gone far in terms of human development. Some countries are going nuclear, while we are still backsliding.
This is a plea to Nigerian politicians to emulate honest leaders like Tafawa Balewa, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, Gen. Murtala Mohammed, and the likes who are all of blessed memory. All these people did not accumulate billions at the expense of the masses. They did not acquire or pile fleet of expensive cars while majority of the people (electorates) are suffering in silence. Our present political leaders should remember that they are not going to stay in this brief world over hundreds years. All of us in one way or the other will leave this world, whether we like it or not and definitely account for our deeds. It will be too late to cry when the head is cut off.
Okay, Nigeria clearly is not in tandem with the tenets of democracy, check the last EIU report on democracy and you will come to realise that Nigeria practices what is at best termed: “pseudo-democracy”.
Haven said that, for me that’s not even the discuss we should be having. The key converse here is: Is Democracy working for Africa? Is Democracy working for Nigeria? Do we need to sit down, design a form of government that can deliver the sort of social, economic and political growth and development that we sort and begin to practise it? Is it only Democracy that functions in other developed societies?
Japan is a highly structured and developed economy (in fact the third largest economy in the world) does not practice Democracy. Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong have made giant strides since 1960 till date and are highly industrialised. Do they practice democracy? Who says democracy can work for Africa. Is there any African nation where Democracy works and they are making significant progress? Dont even mention South Africa, because it is not even making progress. Its GDP for instance is on a slide, there is high unemployment rate (over 20%), there is high crime rate, there is high HIV prevalence, and so on). Ghana is certainly not making significant progress, with inflation rate skyrocketing of recent, North Africa have been forced to embrace Democracy and since then, its been chaos upon chaos, wars here and there, which has continue to spiral to other nations (butterfly effect), with weapons finding its way into the wrong hands…
Our socio-cultural diversity makes democracy a difficult form of government for our continent, the bitter truth is: IT CAN’T WORK FOR AFRICA, not now, not in the near future. Perhaps, in further future.
There are stages in the life of a nation, just as there are stages in the life of a human being. When a nation is still at cradle stage, it certainly cannot adopt democracy to function or grow, just as a child cannot be left to choose just whatever he/ she wants. As the child develops and grows, then it begins to have some level of independence to choose and at adulthood, it can completely choose for itself. A nation must also be seen this way.
Third world nations must adopt a different form of government from Democracy at this crawling stage, when giant strides of development take place, then and only then, can such grown and educated populace begin to adopt democracy as a form of government. The nations where democracy works are made up of highly educated populace who mostly understand what leadership means and what is best for them and certainly practice almost similar form of religion (with a clear majority religion to add to that).
Third world nations are made up of highly uneducated populace, who do not understand leadership, and who do not know what is best for them (or do know but choose to turn blind eye to it) and highly diversified ethnicity and religion. (Even North Africa that is dominated by Islam cannot survive democracy, there Elder Brother Saudi Arabia does not practice democracy, yet peaceful, yet the United States is their friend and do not intend/ plan to force democracy on them). Just for information purpose, Saudi Arabia is now the largest importer of Arms and ammunition, the largest spender: spending over $10 billion for their defense. That is a working nation: without democracy.
It is high time, Nigerian youths began to have such discuss as: Can Democracy even work for us? If not, then what system can we design and adopt? Or is it that we are so dumb as to not be able to think and design our own functional form of government? During our best years between 1960-66, 1970-1979, when we were net-exporters, when naira was stronger than dollars, what form of government did we practice? Was it this pseudo-democracy or regional form of government. If we can’t go back to regional form of government, then do we follow Singaporean model with a tweak, or what? Let’s think, the world only stands up for those that THINK. Democracy or pseudo-democracy that we currently practice can simply NOT work for Nigeria.
I very much agree with the strive for a better instalment of the actual democracy one day the youths will rise and there will be no stopping Mark my words if lives would be lost so be it I can’t stand the troubles of various innocent people I’m making a vow to fight for the masses this is my father’s land and I will not stop until evil people are eradicated in our midst the next generation will come fast to save this country.we are not far behind. By anonymous
no oooo abeg nigeria is the worst country ever illl