Text of a remark by All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the anniversary of Democracy Day
The history of mankind is an endless saga of justice, struggling against injustice, compassion against hatred, hope versus despair, prosperity versus poverty and liberty against oppression. Wherever man has resided with fellow man, they have cooperated but also clashed. Where greed and anger have been allowed to loom stronger than their more benign opposites, conflict and the rule of might over right prevail.
The people suffer a caustic governance that, the more odious it tastes, the more it demands of the people a blinding obedience that stifles most of what is good in the society. The people own not the deed to their very existence. They become fodder of a ruthless leviathan that would rather crush their humanity than suckle it.
Where amity and fairness abide, social harmony and the rule of right over might raise a benign standard. The people suffer not to serve their rulers but their leaders suffer to serve them. The welfare of the people becomes the lodestar and not an afterthought of governance.
In the life of any nation, of any people, good is always sought but never assured. Whatever is worthwhile is never freely given or easily attained in this most human of spaces where both good and evil sell their wares. When good prevails, it is a function of struggle and sweat, true vision followed by truer deed.
This is why we celebrate democracy. It is neither a gift nor something easily come by. If our democracy was always here and abiding, we would not have cause to celebrate because it would just seem like the natural order of things. But, democracy is with us only because almost all prayed for it; most fought for it; many bled for it; some died for its sake. A thing so hard-won is something we dare not leave unattended to or take for granted. We must keep guard over it and honor it lest something evil comes to snatch it because you fail to stand watch.
On this day, we affirm our belief that democracy is vital to our wellbeing but also never guaranteed. We must nurture and watch over it for good reason. The more we feed and nourish democracy, the more it feeds and nourishes the people, allowing them the sovereign control over their collective destiny. No other form of government extends such a winsome offer. No other form of government deserves to be consecrated as our national way of life.
While constructed to guard against yielding absolute power to the wicked and ruthless, democracy is more than a shield against the evil that man at times throws at his brother. Democracy also recognises the basic goodness of people. It seeks to give us just enough power to exercise that goodness without giving any one of us so much power as to be able to confiscate the freedom and the fruits thereof which belong to others. Good begets good, love of freedom begets more freedom just as evil seeks to multiply itself and the acquisition of power begets a decadent appetite for more power. Democracy is the dynamic balancing of freedom and power so that society can be effectively led without the people being unduly suppressed.
I have devoted the better part of my life to the struggle for Nigerian democracy. I would be more than happy to devote the rest of my days so that democracy can thrive and erase the unjust imbalances that have for too long been a heavy surcharge against the lives of most of our people.
I believe in democracy for Nigeria because of my unyielding faith in the people. We are not perfect. No people are. But we are a good and decent national family. Our attributes, skills, compassion and generosity as a people are inferior to none. There is no shame in being Nigerian but only pride at how this people have withstood so much for so long yet have neither been broken nor have given themselves over to defeat. In the face of steep odds, you the people have been resilient unto victory.
We have endured the harsh meter of authoritarian rule. After military rule gave way, we withstood the ambivalent nature of 17 years of civilian rule, not as brutish as the military, but not quite democracy neither. We existed in the twilight between darkness and light. Yet, we refused to get lost or to avert your focus from what was better.
We lived in a land of elections the results of which were not always the expression of the sovereign will of the people, but of the will of a few people who mistook themselves to be the sovereign. Instead of holding elections, they used a superficially democratic process to coronate themselves as modern royalty. They misbehaved and misgoverned according to this fouled perception.
The only honor such people could give democracy was to mock it. When they celebrated Democracy Day these past 16 years, it was as thieves and burglars celebrating one of their own becoming the chief security officer of a bank.
The pall of falsity hung over our democratic process and future.
However, right may be silenced for a moment but it never tells lies. The inadequacy of such an arrangement became manifest. The people demanded better because they deserved better.
By last year, we committed ourselves as a nation to ensuring that democracy was given full expression. No more full tricks or half truths.
The people voted out the government and the party in office that had bragged they would hold Nigeria captive for six decades. At that moment, democracy day was turned from a bittersweet irony into a blossoming reality.
We planted democracy in Nigeria. As long as we exercise prudence and follow wise policy, never shall it depart from us.
Now that we have planted democracy, we must move to the next phase. We must clear our system of the malpractices of the past that do not contribute to good governance but only perpetuate extant ills that we now seek to jettison. The people gave conservative elitist government 16 years to drive the nation forward. It drove the nation indeed: right into the ditch we found ourselves.
The people are due an era of progressive and democratic good governance that augurs durable growth and widely-shared prosperity.
This phase shall be hard. Those who benefitted from injustices in the past energetically plot their return. The looters of yesterday to whom we waved farewell in the 2015 elections now try to shimmy through the backdoor to continue their pilfering ways. There is no progressive policy in your benefit that they do not actively seek to undermine and make fail. They hope to use your kindness and patience against you. They seek to erect barriers to discourage us into believing there is no other way than the backward path they offer.
We shall forfeit the nation’s future if we give in to their deceit, or if we fall into despondency because progress does not appear to come as fast, or as systematically as we hoped.
Remember, the quest for democracy is a battle not a banquet. We must stick with it and not give up hope, just when fairness and justice have finally gotten the upper hand. We must persevere not just until the tide of battle seems to have turned in our favour but until the opponents of democracy have been decisively and thorough bested.
Thus, we do not relent in defending democracy just as we should not relent in expecting the benefits inherent in democratic good governance. This means we must not sit back and merely let government contest with those who would again turn government against the general welfare. All of us must join the fray because the fray is about us and whether we live in a manner than fulfills our national purpose.
You, the people, must participate in government as never before. We cannot be passive onlookers when what lies in the balance is the future of our children and their sons and daughters after them. If someone tried to kidnap your child, you would not fold your hands and close your mouth. Then, we should not do so when the vultures and hyenas of yesterday sneak about in an attempt to steal, perhaps not our children, but their very futures.
Press forward! As a sovereign people, we must be the voice and masters of our collective destiny. We must be more active in expressing what we want government to do in order to better this nation and its governance. The people must articulate their opinions and goals to give government the input and impetus necessary for it to be as responsive and benevolent as possible.
We have done much and have come a long way. Yet, we must not be tired when we are now so close to our destination. We must force ourselves to press on until pressing on becomes what we do both by reflex and reflection for democracy is never fully achieved. To keep democracy, we must keep perfecting it. Democracy is a fine home that always beckons us to improve it that we may improve our collective lot in the process.
There are many challenges facing our nation. There are security problems in some areas. But thankfully, the government is making progress, particularly against Boko Haram insurgents. This brutal terrorist group will soon be a thing of the bleak past. The sense killings and the destruction wrought will be no more.
There is a problem that cuts all areas equally. If we are not careful, it will afflict us a long time to come. In a cold, swift stroke, the decline in oil prices has turned into a mockery the model upon which we had for so long based our political economy. We either must waste away or construct a new model.
We should diversify our economy by expanding our infrastructural network, bolstering agricultural and farm incomes, as well as filliping industry and manufacturing to provide jobs for a rapidly expanding urban work force. We must revise how our children are educated and ensure that they are prepared for the 21st century instead of barely being educated to function in the 19th.
In the spirit of Democracy Day, and of the discourse necessary to enliven the democratic spirit, I would like to share some thoughts on how I think we should address the prevailing economic challenge. For this might be the most perilous of all that confronts us. If we lose this battle, democracy may become so weakened at its core that it transmogrifies into what it ought not to be.
To accomplish our economic rescue, we need a fiscal policy that stands unrivalled in its range and its objectives. Government must dedicate unprecedented amounts for productive expenditure in our transportation infrastructure, power generation, food security and job creation. We have entered a period of stagflation where recession or shrinkage of the economy is accompanied by higher prices. Unfortunately, if we try to fight both at the same time, we fight neither effectively. Given the rate of joblessness and poverty, it is more fitting to fight recession at this point than to focus on inflation. We can endure a bit more inflation if it means more jobs and greater aggregate demand that can develop the velocity needed to free the economy of recession’s gravitational pull. We must resist recession; it is harder to shake off once it takes grip of an economy.
Moreover, if we are bold enough not to allow fear to paralyse us, we can start creating employment opportunities; we can modernise our infrastructure which will reduce the cost of living and doing business. We can institute policies that create new industries and businesses as well as improve old ones. These measures will form the foundation of a diversified economy that will become more resistant to inflation because it is less reliant on imports. Also, it will be more recession resistant because the economy will rest on multiple revenue sources instead of a single source that is dependent on foreign consumer preferences over which we have little control.
Restructuring our economy is the most complex challenge before us. On this so much depends. We all must contribute if we are to win.
Now is not the time to lament, murmur or give in to despair. It is time to summon once again the political and social courage that we well know and that well knows us. We need to push forward and to urge government forward to do that which it must to achieve this great generational feat. We stand between success and failure; but we cannot maintain this middling position forever. We must turn one way or the other. To me there is but one option. The other is unspeakable. We must be bold enough not accept an inferior destiny. We must win.
To do so, we must use all the democratic tools at our disposal. I am proud and commend the Nigerian people for having carried the nation this far. Don’t faint now. We are almost out of the thicket and so close to home.
A great historic push and effort are mandated. Change takes boldness, perseverance and moral fortitude; profound change requires even more so. The task is hard but I neither fret nor worry. In my heart, I am comforted by the knowledge that we are so much better and stronger than the obstacle before us. We shall, and must overcome it because it is in our nature and it is for our best destiny to do so.
