The Nation Newspaper

Tag: democracy

  • Between electoral and executive rascality and democracy

    ELECTIONS in any democracy create or destroy power. Which in effect means that while elections can refresh power for incumbents they can also remove them from power. That was what happened in Ekiti State recently and even though the loser’s wife has protested that what happened at the election will soon be known, the fact is that power has shifted base from one party to another and from an incumbent to an incoming. That is the beauty of democracy.

    The acceptance of loss of power with equanimity and without loss of composure or face, is another potent aspect of elections that nurtures stability and continuity in governance and security. Thankfully all that was very much at play again at the last gubernatorial elections in Ekiti state and is something that we in this part of the world can be quite proud of, at least this time around.

    The reason for mutual backslapping or elationover a smooth electoral transition of power in Ekiti is not difficult to see if you monitored the reactions of politicians to some elections globally in the last week. In Indonesia’s presidential elections this week the two contestants have claimed victory in a way similar to how Former US President George Bush Jnr did on his election in 2000 for a first term of office when the results were very close when he defeated Al Gore in a close and controversial election decided by the Florida recount. Similarly in Afghanistan, the front runner in the announced election results asked for an urgent audit of the votes cast to confirm his lead while his opponent who also disputed the election results was planning to form a parallel government. This was a move which saw the US, the ‘owner’ or midwife of Afghan democracy sending its Secretary of State John Kerry scurrying back to Afghanistan to warn that any parallel government will not have US aid or US guarantee of security for Afghanistan- which both contestants know and admit is a sine qua non for any leader to rule Afghanistan at this present time.

    So, in effect, it follows that elections in some circumstances need some guarantees to facilitate their conduct and transparency and in some cases some threats, either subtle or direct, to ensure that those who get elected really get to take over power in a con-ducive environment. Surely these are the rigors or the political costs of elections and they vary from place to place. In Ekiti of recent the army was the guarantor of a free and fair election while INEC was the organiser and facilitator. In Afghanistan the US was the guarantor and in either Ekiti and Afghanistan, the contestants were left in no doubt as to the conduct expected in the elections even though the electoral body was given a free hand to operate . In Ekiti some critics have called the involvement of the army a militarisation of elections, which I think is a misnomer as soldiers did not vote. All they did was to police the election as the normal police was deemed inadequate to provide such function even though they were on the ground filly kitted like an army for any eventualities.

    Which meant that the Army in Ekiti policed the election on behalf of the police which will make such operation a mere ‘police action’ similar to the one the Federal government of former Head of State ex-General Yakubu Gowon embarked on at the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War to crush the Biafran secession. Surely that seems to have become the mode of security for state elections under INEC nowadays as it was done in Edo state before Ekiti and all things being equal it would be repeated in Oshun state elections due in August. The only snag in the comparison with the Afghan election guarantee is that while the US had no stake in who won the election in Afghanistan, the Commander in Chief of the Nigerian army is the leader of one of the parties viewing for power in the state and has even come there to campaign for the party’s candidate who eventually won.

    You have to wonder then what could have happened if the Commander in Chief’s candidate had lost or whether his losing at all was ever a part of the security guarantees for the elections. We need to mention that the police action against the Biafran rebels later metamorphosed into a full scale military action when the Biafran army proved a hard nut to track with that initial strategy.

    Aside from power shift arising from elections, real power rascality can ensue between power holders and those with whom they exercise or share power as was the case in the US this week when some US Republican Party leaders asked that US President Barak Obama should be impeached for violating the US Constitution in his use of presidential powers. Which is quite laughable considering the fact that President Obama was a professor of Constitutional law before becoming president surelyknows the limits of presidential powers. But his accusers are not joking on the charges and some senators have stoked the fire against Obama further by threatening to take him to court on similar charges. Obama in turn have called their bluff by saying that he has acted within the constitution and would be happy to have his day in court on the matter with his accusers. Of course Obama is serving his second term and cannot be frightened with the prospect of losing his powers through any presidential elections again but he is becoming a lame duck president faster than most of his predecessors in office. A lame duck president in the US is one who is ignored because he is in his last term and people are preparing for his successor as he is running out of tenure and office and is not quite relevant on issues. So Obama can afford to make himself merry with the rascality of those seeking his impeachment as his days are numbered in office anyway.

    This is not so however if a sitting president in any nation is seeking re election and a state governor stands in his way for what ever reason. This brings to mind the problem the Adamawa State governor Murtala Nyako is having over a letter he wrote recently condemning the security strategy and presidential style of Nigeria’s incumbent President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan.

    As at now Governor Nyako is facing impeachment charges from his state legislature that is surely a spill over from his face off with the Nigerian president and I am sure that the Adamawa governor is fighting dearly for his incumbency even though there is no election yet in his state. Surely Governor Nyako knows very well by now what the late but very witty MKO Abiola meant when he said only a mad man will stand in front of a moving train, when he counts the cost of his altercation with the Nigeria president over the security of his state where he is the chief security officer, and that of the purview of the C- in C which covers Nigeria including Adamawa state. This has shown that even in the use and management of power and security, water must find its own level at all times as incumbencies at both state and federal levels are not certainly equal in many aspects. Especially in Nigeria where Aso Rock is the fount of power and patronage thanks to our unitary system of governance in a so called federal arrangement or constitution.

  • The Governance Predicament: Poverty, Terrorism and Democracy

    The Governance Predicament: Poverty, Terrorism and Democracy

    Lecture delivered at Freedom House, Lagos, Nigeria by Larry Diamond June 30, 2014

    It goes without saying that something is seriously wrong when the Governor of the Central Bank finds that during an 18-month period between January 2012 and July 2013 Nigeria failed to repatriate three-quarters of the roughly $65 billion it presumably earned from oil sales.[3] Add to this the findings of the Farouk Lawan Committee, which exposed a fuel subsidy scam costing Nigeria some $7 billion, the work of Nuhu Ribadu and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and so many other reports and revelations not just in recent years but over the tragic history of oil wealth in Nigeria, and it is hard to dismiss the assertion of former World Bank Vice President and former Minister Oby Ezekwesli that some $400 billion of the Nigeria’s oil revenue has been stolen or misspent since its independence.[4]As one of the most astute foreign scholars of Nigeria, Peter Lewis, recently observed to me, “In the last decade, the government has been hemorrhaging the resources from Nigeria’s second oil boom. Not even the electricity program that is supposed to be part of the government’s “transformation agenda” can move ahead.”[5]

    It is just not credible for defenders of the current order to dismiss all these allegations as partisan or “unproven”.  They form a pattern of documentation of embezzlement, mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds that is shocking in scale, irrefutable in essence, and devastating in impact.

    Certainly Nigerians perceive that corruption is out of control.  In the recent Global Corruption Barometer, 78 percent of Nigerians—one of the largest proportions in the world—said corruption is a significant problem in the country. 72% felt it had increased substantially in the last two years. 75% said the government was doing little to combat it.  94% perceived political parties as corrupt or extremely corrupt (and about the same percentage the police as well).[6]  These percentages are backed up by expert ratings, such as those done by the World Bank, which rank the quality of governance in Nigeria in the bottom quartile of all the world’s countries.

    This scale of corruption has serious consequences for development and human wellbeing.  To understand this, let us look at one simple statistic—the percentage of children under five years old who die every year.  And let us compare Nigeria and Ghana.  Four decades ago, in the wake of the first oil boom, Nigeria was a much wealthier country than Ghana.  Its per capita income was about 40 percent higher than Ghana’s.[7]Since the darkest days of military rule and partial state collapse in Ghana, that country has moved forward to develop democracy and lift up state capacity and performance.  Nigeria has not.  As a result, Ghana has significantly improved its rankings onthe quality of governance, while Nigeria’s have remained miserable.  In control of corruption, Ghana is now in the 56th percentile worldwide, Nigeria is in the 11th percentile.  On Rule of law, Ghana is in the 50th percentile.  Nigeria is in the bottom 10 percent.  Here are the other percentile rankings, on a scale from 0 to 100:

    State effectiveness:  Ghana 52, Nigeria 16.

    Voice and accountability: Ghana 60, Nigeria 27

    Regulatory quality: Ghana 56, Nigeria 25.

    As a consequenceof all of this, Ghana ranks in the 50th percentile in terms of political stability, and Nigeria is in the third percentile, down in the neighborhood of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the DRC.  And this was before Boko Haram abducted some 276schoolgirls in Chibok a few weeks ago as part of its latest and most ruthless rampage.  Given these data, how surprised should we be that order is disintegrating in a part of Nigeria’s territory, with repeated bombings as well in and around the capital city?

    Now let us look at under age five mortality rates.  Ghana has reduced this grim statistic since 1980 by 57%; Nigeria by only 42%.  Today about 7.2% of Ghanaian children under age five die each year—a horrible statistic, but much better than the Nigerian rate, which is 12.4%.  Nigeria has the ninth worst child death rate in the world, of the 196 countries for which UNICEF presents data.   The difference between Nigeriaand Ghana is the difference between one out of 14 kids dying a year versus one of out eight. UNICEF estimates that 827,000 Nigerian children under age five died in 2012, about one of every eight such deaths in the entire world.  Now imagine for a moment that Nigeria had Ghana’s under-five mortality rate of 7.2 percent.  The number of Nigeria’s child deaths in 2012 would have been about 347,000 fewer.  Multiply that figure, or some large portion of it, by however many years you wish to go back in time, and the number of children who have died because Nigeria’s child death rate is larger than Ghana’s runs well into the millions.  In the last decade alone, it has surely been over two million, probably over three million Nigerian children.  That is many more deaths than in the Nigerian civil war.  It is more than three times as many deaths as in the Rwandan genocide, and comparable to the number of Cambodians murdered by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

    These were children, who had their whole lives ahead of them.  It is hard to see what can possibly account for the difference in child death rates between Nigeria and Ghana except the demonstrably worsegovernance in Nigeria.

    Allow me to quote again from your former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili:

    By conservative estimate, our country has earned more than $600billion in the last five decades and yet can only boast of a United Nations Human Development Index score of .4 out of 1, proximate to that of Chad, and [a] maternal mortality rate similar to that of Afghanistan! Nothing reveals the depth of our failures [more] than such performance indicators, considering the vastly greater possibilities that we have been bestowed.[8]

    53 years after independence, an estimated half of Nigerian adults are illiterate, 70 percent lack access to improved sanitation facilities, a quarter of all children are underweight, and over a third of them are not being immunized.[9]

    Who will be held accountable for these developmental failures, and for the roughlythree million children who would not have died if Nigeria’s Fourth Republic had managed to improve the quality of governance—not to the level of Sweden, just to the level of Ghana? When political leaders murder a million of their own people, we call it genocide.  We do not have a term for the crime that is inflicted when egregious corruption and mismanagement cause the needless death of three million children over an extended period of time.

    When more than 200 school children are  abducted from their school dormitories by a terrorist organisation, outrage comes easily, and justifiably.  We know the names and faces of those girls.  Where are recorded the names and faces of the 347,000 children under five years old who died last year but would still be alive if Nigeria had—I repeat—merely decent governance?

    The current moment begs another question:  If the Nigerian state, with all its natural wealth, cannot ensure that its children are given decent levels of social and economic security—education, immunization, and nutrition—how can it ensure that they have physical security?  Why should anyone expect the army and police to show greater purpose, efficacy, and selflessness than other segments of the state and the body politic?  Bad governance is like cancer; it is malignant—it spreads throughout the body.  And cultural norms are set from the top, as people watch not what their leaders say, but what they do.  This is why President Shehu Shagari’s declaration of an “ethical revolution” during the Second Republic was so unserious.  What is the point of appealing to the public for better ethics when government and politics are riddled with pervasive, unchecked greed?

    One of the oldest aphorisms about governance, which many cultures claim to have originated, is this:  The fish rots from the head down.  As Chinua Achebe eloquently noted in his essay, The Trouble with Nigeria, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else.”

    Leadership sets the tone.  Some thirty years ago, when I was writing about the failure of the First Nigerian Republic, a phrase kept ringing in my ears.  It was prompted by years of corruption and repression, and then the blatant rigging of the October 1965 Western Regional election, which plunged the region into violent rebellion against the government of Premier Samuel Akintola.  I wrote about that period:

    Looters and highway robbers were aware that their behavior differed only in its openness from that of the politicians.  Said one young man as he threatened to ignite a car he had stopped on the highway, “Akintola has had his share.  Now we want ours.”[10]

    When most leaders of politics and government are seen as scoundrels and thieves, ordinary people tend to behave in kind, because they do not trust their fellow citizens to behave any differently, and they do not want to be the lone fool who obeys the formal rules.  That is not the kind of social, legal and moral foundation on which a country can build democracy, development, or peace and stability.

     

    The link to terrorism and insecurity

    In the absence of very serious and far-reaching governance reform, the problem of Boko Haram’s murderous violence in the north is not any more amenable to termination than is the problem of piracy and criminality in the Niger Delta area.  There is no purely security solution to either of these security challenges.  Each emerges as a twisted response to a situation of pervasive corruption, injustice, distrust, moral decay, and state weakness.  And each appears to be intertwined with struggles for political power in complex, opaque, and volatile ways.

    It is not merely social scientists that have stressed the significant social, economic, and political roots of terrorist violence, across a wide range of national situations, of which Nigeria is only one.  In April 2012, the then National Security Advisor to the President, the late retired general Andrew Owoye Azaze, made a similar point in a public speech, stressing that the mobilization of force alone against Boko Haram could not work, and that Nigeria could not achieve security without broad-based development:

    …Even if all the leaders that we know in Boko Haram are arrested, I don’t think the problem would end, because there are tentacles. I don’t think that people would be satisfied, because the situations that created the problems are not just about the religion, poverty or the desire to rule Nigeria. I think it’s a combination of everything. Except you address all those things comprehensively, it would not work.

    …It is not enough for us to have a problem in 2009 and you send soldiers to stop the situation, then tomorrow you drive everybody underground. You must look at what structures you need to put in place to address the problem holistically. There are economic problems in the North, which are not the exclusive prerogative of the Northerners. We must solve our problems as a country.[11]

    It is also important to stress another lesson of comparative experience in countering insurgences:  By further victimizing many innocent people, human rights violations by state security forces enlarge support for the insurgency.  In and outside Nigeria, there is growing concern over the climate of impunity for state security forces who are responsible for, to quote the latest annual report of Human Rights Watch,  “indiscriminate arrest, detention, torture, and extra-judicial killing of those suspected to be supporters or members” of Boko Haram.[12]

     

    What is to be done

    I don’t think many Nigerians needed the suffering and shame that Boko Haram has inflicted on this country to see that the situation is desperate and is not amenable to platitudes and faint-hearted solutions.  Intellectual honesty can only point in the direction of comprehensive and far-reaching policy responses.  When corruption has brought a country down to the bottom three percent in the world in terms of political stability, it’s time to think outside the box.

    I want to suggest six reform responses.  I don’t presume that these are the only ones, and I realize that some of these are definitely “outside the box.” Nigeria has to do multiple radical and unconventional things if it is going to climb out of the deep trough in which it has been stuck for half a century.

    The place to begin is with elections.  Two key requirements for clean elections are effective and neutral administration, and comprehensive transparency.  On the first, some progress has been made, but there are serious concerns about whether the country’s electoral administration is up to the coming challenge in 2015. There is at least on respect in which the recent Ekiti election does not inspire confidence.  You cannot have the police and the military blocking the supporters (not to mention fellow governors) of one party from moving about a state and campaigning, and call that a fully free and fair election.  Democratic elections require a level playing field.  That must mean freedom to campaign.  And it must mean strict neutrality of all the instruments of state security.

    I think there is something to be learned from the experience of India in institutionalising the extraordinary power, independence, and administrative capacity of the Election Commission of India.  The position of the Chief Election Commissioner is one of the most crucial and respected in India, equivalent in stature to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and it has been held by some of India’s most highly accomplished and talented career civil servants.  Why not call one of them in to advise on elections here, or even to sit as an advisory member of the INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission)?

    It is vitally important that the INEC vigorously advance its work, with the broad assistance of civil society and the Nigerian media, to educate Nigerians about the coming elections and strongly encourage them to register to vote.  An election can only be as good as the electoral register, and it takes many months to ensure that the register of voters is as accurate, up to date, and inclusive as possible.  It helps that we are in a new era now technologically, where biometric tools of voter identification can help to root out fraudulent inflation of the electoral register.  But those tools, as well, must be applied in a rigorously neutral and transparent way.  Every step in preparing the election must be open to scrutiny.

    Second, there is a clear and unimpeachable gold standard for monitoring the fairness of elections. Neutral monitors in civil society must have the freedom and resources to conduct a parallel vote tabulation (PVT).  The technology for this is well established, and Nigerian civil society organizations are well experienced in this task.  In previous recent elections, their parallel counts have not (to my knowledge) dramatically diverged from the official percentage tally of the vote.  Nigeria must have neutral and credible judicial processes available should the parallel vote tabulation in2015 clearly indicate a different electoral outcome than the officially declared one.

    Third, there is a need to advance internal democracy within Nigerian political parties.  There is a growing recognition internationally that you cannot have a quality democracy unless there are adequate procedures for transparency, accountability, constitutionalism, and democratic procedures within political parties.  This must include democratic means for the selection of candidates so that they become accountable to the voters more than to party leaders and “godfathers.”

    Fourth is the need to reform and modernise the state security apparatus.  The military, police, and intelligence must be trained and equipped to wage the security response with the proper tools and strategy, and to target the use of force carefully and effectively.  They must also be instructed and monitored to avoid needless civilian casualties, and they must be held accountable for violations of law and procedure.  But reports of recent confrontations between Nigerian security forces and Boko Haram suggest that the former have often been significantly outgunned and outmaneuvered.  It is the responsibility of civilian political leadership in the executive and legislative branches to work with the military and oversee the military to ensure it has the necessary weapons and other tools.  International security cooperation is also needed to track and confront the shadowy movements of arms and money across borders.

    Fifth, the laws on paper against bribery, corruption, and conflict of interest are reasonably good in principle, but they have huge weaknesses in enforcement that must be repaired.  Corruption is like water seeping into the ground; it will find any crack or crevice and make use of it.  The only way to fight it is with a system of horizontal accountability that is vigorous, comprehensive, independent, and interlocking.

    A critical, indispensable condition for successful enforcement is transparency.  What good is it for public officials to declare their assets if those declarations are not made publicly available?  The Code of Conduct Bureau has never had the staffing, the manpower, the energy, and probably the will to vigorously investigate the veracity of all of these declarations.  It needs the public’s help.  And it needs the help of the international community.  By law, all assets declarations should be made available online for public scrutiny.  And since Nigerian law forbids the President, Vice-President, Governors, and federal and state legislators from operating foreign bank accounts, why not require them to sign, along with the Code of Conduct, a legal declaration foregoing any right of privacy or any claim to ownership of any foreign bank accounts that may bear their name.  This still leaves open the question of accounts owned by their spouses and children, another loophole that would need to be addressed.  They should also be asked to forswear ownership and invite surrender of any real property or other assets, foreign or domestic, that are discovered to be in their names, which they have not listed on their assets declaration.

    In the early 1990s, when I was researching the problem of corruption in Nigeria and the total inefficacy of the Code of Conduct Bureau at that time, it became clear to me that little sustainable progress in controlling corruption would be made unless politicians knew that the public, and the international financial system, would be mobilized against them if they accumulated vast wealth in office and then tried to hide it.  It took me a long time to get a Nigerian politician to engage me in an honest conversation on the subject, but finally I found one.  When I explained why I thought it was essential to make the assets declarations public, he agreed with the logic of my argument, but said it would be impossible, because:  “If the people ever found out how much wealth the politicians have, there would be a revolution in this country.”

    Maybe it is time to declare a financial amnesty:  Account for what you have, bring your money back home, hand over the bulk of it, and you will not be prosecuted.  Maybe the only way to begin is by following the maxim of the leading anti-corruption scholar, Robert Klitgaard, that you must “fry big fish” if you are serious about controlling corruption.  But that requires a serious and independent anti-corruption apparatus. And that in turn means hard thinking about how to insulate these bodies from partisan political control and other forms of subversion.  Nigeria needs to do some creative, hard thinking about how to appoint the members of crucial agencies of horizontal accountability—such as the Code of Conduct Bureau, the INEC, the Federal Judicial Service Commission and possibly some of the other bodies enumerated in article 153 of the Constitution.  If the country gets a president seriously committed to good governance and political reform, then it works fine to have the president appoint and the Senate confirm the chairmen and members of these bodies.  But constitutions should be designed to protect against the worst leaders, not to empower the best. Is there a way to involve civil society in the selection of these crucial positions to ensure that they are independent and vigorous personalities, dedicated to the role envisioned in the Constitution?  Would the power of appointment to these bodies be better vested with the Supreme Court or some other body?

    If you want to think radically, here is a sixth possible policy reform.  Give some of the oil money directly back to the people.  There is growing international interest in the idea of “oil to cash,” essentially the “Alaska model,” wherein the state directly gives some of the oil revenue back to each individual citizen.  With the growth of mobile phone access and mobile banking, this is a much more feasible approach in Africa than it would have been even a few years ago.  And technology will make it increasingly feasible.  Nigeria may be too populous a country to distribute revenue to everyone, but cash payments could at least be targeted on the poorest of the poor, as India is doing with income supplements. Some allege that the poor would waste the money on impulsive spending. But, can the poor really do a worse job than Nigerian politicians have done over the last several decades? If, as was reported in the recent Ekiti elections, Nigeria’s voters are going to demand that candidates for office pay attention to the “infrastructure of the stomach,”[13] maybe the state should do that directly and then let the voters decide who can best deliver development.

    I would like to conclude with one final appeal.  And it is addressed to my own country and to Europe, as much as to Nigeria.  Whatever the total amount of money that successive generations of Nigerian politicians have embezzled and looted, some significant portion of it—probably well over $100 billion—sits outside Nigeria today in identifiable liquid and fixed assets:  bank accounts, stocks, property, and other investments and luxury wealth.  We cannot bring back to life the millions of Nigerian children who have died needlessly because their government leaders were more concerned about accumulating personal wealth than ensuring that their country’s children had clean water, decent roads, adequate food, comprehensive vaccinations, and effective education.  But when the time is right, when Nigeria has a government that is serious about controlling corruption, we can help bring back as much of this stolen wealth as possible.  And we can work with Nigerian government officials and civil society to help build the systems of accountability to minimize this hemorrhage of public resources in the future.

    Like many people around the world, I have been deeply moved by the international campaign with the hashtag “#bringbackourgirls”.  But let us use this opportunity to mobilize not only for these more than 200 abducted girls, but for the more than 2 million Nigerian girls who have died before their fifth birthday just in the last decade.  I would hope in the years to come that a similar level of international outrage and commitment can be mobilized behind a broader and more transformative campaign, led by Nigerians but eliciting unprecedented international partnership:

    #bring back our money.

    Thank you.

  • Ekiti Poll: The ugly face of democracy?

    Ekiti Poll: The ugly face of democracy?

    The stunning but totally unexpected defeat of Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governor of Ekiti State, by Mr. Ayo Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has led many observers and analysts to ask questions. No one gave Fayose any chance to win the election. A former discredited, impeached and disgraced PDP governor, he was still standing trial for all kinds of financial misdemeanours, including the multi- billion naira poultry project that never saw the light of day and murder charges when he was declared the winner of the election.

    Presumably, these legal charges will now be dropped, including the ongoing investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of financial misdemeanours. He will claim immunity from prosecution while in office.

    Many observers were initially sceptical of Fayose’s sweeping electoral victory, but were left in a quandary when Dr. Fayemi promptly conceded defeat, congratulating Fayose. This was most gracious of him and reinforces widespread public view of him as a decent person. It was commendable, as this gesture probably saved the state from post-election violence. The scope of Fayose’s electoral victory was stunning and surprising. The turnout in the election was rather low. Of the nearly 800,000 voters validly registered for the election, only 360, 000 actually voted. Fayose was recorded as winning 56 per cent of the votes, while Fayemi could only win 33 per cent. So sweeping was Fayose’s victory that he won in all the local governments, including that of Fayemi. The low turnout for the election may account in part for the scope of Fayose’s victory. Many of Fayemi’s supporters probably stayed away from the election, either because they were confident of his victory, or because they feared an outbreak of violence. This was probably the most sweeping victory in Nigeria’s recent electoral and political history.

    Since Governor Fayemi has not contested the results of the election, we must consider them free and fair, and a genuine representation of the electoral wishes of the people. We must accept the results in the spirit of democracy in which the best candidates may not win always.

    But in the aftermath of the election, several questions have been raised concerning the unexpected outcome of the election. First, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, while acknowledging the right of the Ekiti electorate to vote for a candidate of their choice, in this case Fayose, has expressed concerns that we may now be entering a new phase of politics in Nigeria, specifically one in which financial inducements determine the results of elections. Here, he was referring to media reports that Fayose won the election by giving the voters financial and other inducements. As he  asked in his recent interview in The Nation: “Is it a  logical human behaviour for a land of so many intellectuals to reject so overwhelmingly an incumbent that was a respected family man, a devout  Catholic, a gentleman and an urbane representative, even in his own ward?” He rightly expressed regrets that ‘stomach infrastructure’ has now replaced real development in Ekiti State, which is what is needed. It is the ugly face of democracy.

    Governor Fashola was quite right in raising this pertinent issue as it is crucial for democracy in our country. There has, so far, been no response to this electoral poser by the Ekiti elite, who were probably as much in support of Fayose as the poor in the state. Only Femi Orebe has written in defence of Dr. Fayemi. Other Ekiti leaders appear to be in hiding. Ekiti may be the poorest of the Yoruba states. But its people had a reputation for political doggedness and for fighting for what they considered right. That reputation is now in tatters. The Ekiti vote is a throw back to the horrible days of Adegoke Adelabu and Lamidi Adedibu, both of Ibadan, who used financial inducements and free food to win elections in Ibadan, the so-called Amala politics.

    Governor Fayemi’s immense contribution to the development of the state during his tenure has not been denied even by the opposition. He built roads, schools and hospitals. He left the state with a far better infrastructure than ever before. He ran one of the most competent and effective governments in Nigeria. Under his leadership, there was no financial scandal or scam in the state. He was not being investigated by the EFCC or other anti-fraud agencies. But despite his impressive performance, he was spitefully voted out of office. The only thing he has been accused of is that he did not hand out cash gifts to the voters before the election. But the impressive physical transformation that took place in Ekiti State under his watch is of immense benefit to the public. It will endure long after the cash gifts from Fayose to the electorate must have been spent. That is the road to poverty alleviation and real economic development.

    The second issue concerning the future of democracy in the country was raised recently by the distinguished American scholar, Prof. Larry Diamond, the Director at the Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. In his inaugural Freedom House Lecture on Monday, in Lagos, in apparent reference to the Ekiti election, he observed that the electoral process was badly flawed. “You cannot have the police and the military blocking the supporters (not to mention fellow governors) of one party from moving about in a state and campaigning, and call that a fully free and fair election”. In effect, what Prof. Diamond was saying is that the electoral damage to the APC in Ekiti State was done in the weeks before the election when the ruling PDP Federal Government deployed its military, police and other security forces to ensure the defeat of Governor Fayemi, whose supporters chose to stay at home rather than face violence on the part of the security forces. This was no level-playing field. The dice was stacked heavily in favour of Fayose. Actual voting in Ekiti might have been free. But the entire electoral process was badly flawed. It is the tactics the PDP intends to employ in the forthcoming state and federal elections.

    Now, what are the lessons to be drawn from the Ekiti elections?

    First, the APC, and indeed all parties,  must fight against the improper use of financial inducements in elections. Ideally, the INEC must monitor election expenses and disqualify any candidate spending money through cash gifts to the voters to win elections. This is subversive of democracy and should not be encouraged, or even tolerated. The APC should refrain from resorting to this despicable means to win elections. It cannot match the resources of the ruling PDP.

    Second, internal democracy must be strengthened in the parties through the fair conduct of primaries to ensure fairness. The existing rancour in the parties is the perception that unpopular candidates are being imposed on supporters by the leaders. This practice will alienate the majority of those who will normally support the party.

    Thirdly, as a progressive party, the APC must, despite the electoral setback in Ekiti, stand by its principles and programmes to win elections. It must stay the course and fight for what it believes in. The Ekiti defeat is only a temporary setback, a Pyrrhic victory for Fayose. The state can be regained in the next elections.

  • ‘Democracy Day our foot’

    ‘Democracy Day our foot’

    To polytechnic and college of education students, there is nothing to cheer about 15 years of democratic rule, which was celebrated last week. For 10 months, they have been at home because of their lecturers’ strike. Some spoke of their agony to  OLUWAFEMI OGUNJOBI (Language Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State). 

    Last Thursday, the nation celebrated 15 years of democratic rule. It was a low-key celebration because of the prevailing insecurity in the land.

    The 15-minute Democracy Day address by President Goodluck Jonathan underscored that all was not well, given the security challenges facing the nation. Despite the sombre mood, some believed the day called for celebration.

    But what does Democracy Day mean to polytechnic and college of education students, who have been away from school for 10 months because of the face-off between the Federal Government and their lecturers?

    To the students, there is nothing to cheer about the day. The leaders have done nothing to improve the lot of citizens, they reasoned. The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) accused the government of abandoning polytechnic education, but the government said it has done its best for the lecturers.

    While the face-off goes on, the fate of thousands of polytechnic and college of education students hangs in the balance.

    Whether Democracy Day is worth celebrating or not does not concern the students; all they want is to go back to school.

    Marking Democracy Day while campuses are closed for academics was the height of insensitivity on the part of the government, Michael Adegbola, a Marketing student of The Polytechnic, Ibadan (IBADAN POLY), said.

    “What else should have made the Democracy Day memorable if it is not education? It is this education that they have been labouring to kill. If polytechnic students, who are seeking good education, can be held hostage by the government and Supervising Minister of Education, what future does the democracy have in the country?” Michael quizzed.

    Rosemary Adedoyin, a student of the Federal Polytechnic in Ede (EDE POLY), Osun State, said: “It is time the government grappled with the realities of good governance and how it affects education. Students have been at home for almost a year, with little or no efforts by the government to re-open our schools. Sincerely, this is bad signal and a shame on our democracy.”

    The Federal Government may have been trying its best to end the ASUP strike, but if the efforts have not yielded results, there should be no reason for celebration on Democracy Day, Jennifer Umeh, ND II Mass Communication student of the Federal Polytechnic in Offa (OFFA POLY), Kwara State, said.

    “Democracy in Nigeria itself is a sham, Simon Benjamin, a student, said, adding: “Anyone that celebrated is an enemy of democracy because there can be no democracy without education.”

    To Folashade Ajayi, a 300-Level student of Osun State College of Education, Ila-Orangun, Democracy Day has no meaning because there is no plan for students’ future. Folashade said the ASUP strike has delayed submission of her project and certificates 10 months after she wrote her final examination.

    Inumidun Obisanya, a HND Business Administration student of the EDE POLY, likened the students’ travail to the biblical story of Israelites. He said: “Despite trial of education, it is sad that some people still considered it necessary to celebrate. Our story is an illustration of the biblical story of waiting for the consolation of Israel.”

    Some university students, who spoke to CAMPUSLIFE, believe there was nothing to celebrate about democracy in Nigeria because education has fared badly.

    Aderemi Ojekunle, a graduating student of Public Administration of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State, said: “What is the state of education in 15 years of so-called democracy in Nigeria? Bad governance and maladministration have ruined the gains we have recorded in the past. I hope politicians find time to wake up the giant of Africa from slumber.”

  • Celebrating Democracy Day with dividends of democracy

    What better way to celebrate ‘Democracy day than to share the dividends of democracy with your constituents’!

    That was exactly what the lawmaker representing Ajeromi/Ifelodun federal constituency, Lagos State in the House of Representatives Honourable (Prince) Taiwo Oyewole Adenekan did last Thursday when Nigeria celebrated the 15th anniversary of her return to democratic rule. And he marked the day by bringing joy to the faces of no fewer than 400 members of his constituency to whom he distributed items meant to empower them economically.

    Adenekan gave out items ranging from sewing machines, grinding machines, hair dryer, hair attachment, canoes, tricycles, noodles, groundnut oil and crates of egg to his people to appreciate and thank them “ for standing with our party, appreciation for having confidence in our party and in those they have elected to represent them; and to also tell them to keep fate with us, to continue to give that support and we will never let them down”.

    The purpose of the empowerment, he said was to lift the people out of poverty by letting them have some share of dividends of democracy. “So bit by bit we touch individual hand, bit by bit we will set people up and bit by bit poverty will be eradicated. So it is part of that bit that I am doing today”, Adenekan said  adding that the empowerment is for members of the constituency not minding party affiliation.

    “We carefully select beneficiaries; tailors both male and female who are in the trade maybe with only one machine, we support them with another machine to expand their business. Housewives who don’t have something to do we give them grinding machines to put in front of their houses, it generates some income for them. We also give canoes to those living in the riverside area so that they can fish with it and make a lifelihood.

    “Then we give direct funds, that is financial assistance, though a token of N20,000 per person to either boost their or start a trade. I have been doing that. We live among them and we know the level of poverty and we know that with N20,000 some people will start up and they will continue from there. We have done it before this is not the first time. We give them to those it will benefit most”, Adenekan said.

    He urged the beneficiaries to use what they collect effectively so that they can keep going and generate income to sustain themselves and families.

    Speaking on Democracy Day, the lawmaker said democracy is a culture and a process. “It is a culture our leaders have imbibed and are passing over onto us. Many years of military intervention was a setback to us and 15 years in the life of our country is a very small period.

    “As far as I can see democracy is growing, it is waxing stronger and when we fall we stand up again; we look at our mistakes and we move forward, then our people and our country will be the better for it.

    And as far as I know democracy is on the right part because we now have freedom of expression, association and so many other freedoms that democracy has given to us. I really appreciate the democratic process, it is an ongoing process and we shall continue to wax stronger”, Adenekan said.

    He urged the people to perform their duties by paying their rates and taxes so that the state and local government can move forward and develop.

  • ‘Terrorism threatens gains of democracy’

    ‘Terrorism threatens gains of democracy’

    In this interview, Dr Udenta O Udenta,  Director of Public Communications and Strategy, Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) laments what he described as false narrative about government’s capacity. Sam Egburonu reports

    Recently, Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN)  has been associated with advertisements promoting President Goodluck Jonathan’s national transformation agenda. What is TAN all about and is the national transformation agenda really working?

    Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) is a non-governmental movement made up of Nigerian patriots who are persuaded that the national transformation agenda of the Jonathan administration contains core paradigmatic elements that need to be propagated and extended.

    National transformation is both a deconstructive and a reconstructive exercise. It deconstructs the nation’s 100 years of colonial and post-colonial  inheritance in the spheres of democratisation, building of economic structures, and the setting and execution of development goals.

    The Jonathan administration is reconstructing and reconstituting the foundational logic of Nigeria’s democratic system by strengthening the tools and instruments of electoral governance that made the 2011 general elections better than the 2003 and 2007 elections as the expression of the true will of the people. While the National Orientation Agency strives to codify positive national values into patriotic norms, the on-going National Conference aims at re-calibrating and resolving the contentious issues in the national agenda as the corner stone for the evolution of a more equitable, inclusive and compassionate social and economic order.

    But are Nigerians feeling the impact of all these…

    You must appreciate that some of these programmes and projects have an all-encompassing impact while others have sectoral impact. If you hardly travel by air you may not appreciate the fundamental changes that are occurring in that sector. If you are not a farmer, you won’t appreciate the revolutionary energy that is coursing through that sector. If you have never bothered with rail transportation, you may not have noticed that trains run in Nigeria today.

    Two challenges face the government in this regard. The first is to develop and sustain an integral mechanism for the promotion of these institutional changes, the creation of popular awareness about services already delivered and a structured buy-in process that ensures that Nigerians co-own the benefits of national transformation. The second is to develop a counter public sphere narrative that unconceals the truth of its achievements from the falsity of public perception procreated by the antagonistic segments of the political elite who have persistently dominated the public discourse spaces and sites.

    This is where TAN comes in.

    But some would argue that the transformation agenda has been overshadowed by security challenges in the country.

    Surely, the new terror threat that the government has been battling for some years now has created layers and levels of disequilibrium in the allocation and management of scarce national resources but it cannot unhinge the totality of national developmental planning and the implementation of policy choices and thrusts. As lamentable and tragic as the situation is with regard to lives lost, communities dislocated and economic activities negatively impacted upon in the affected areas, there is yet another challenge; that is, oftentimes, not easily noticeable. The past three years have witnessed an escalation in the amount of money budgeted for security operations against terrorist insurgencies; funds that could easily have been deployed in the education, health, job creation and other human services sectors. However, even in the context of the excesses of the terrorists in our midst, the process of national transformation is being significantly facilitated in various national directions.

    Considering the rating of President Goodluck Jonathan recently, is it not possible the implementation of his national transformation agenda may be affected?

    There are misrepresentations and misreading of the situation in Nigeria by the Western media and unfortunately a segment of the local media and elite forces have bought into this false narrative about government’s capacity and commitment in ending terrorism in Nigeria. What is conveniently forgotten is that Nigeria, like the USA and her global partners are fighting a war without boundaries, a war without rules and a war that can strike you anywhere, anytime, without notice. While the USA public, media, and the whole of the Western world and media rallied around President Bush after the 9/11 attacks, Nigerians are being tutored to disparage their government. Yet, 9/11 was a clear case of a gross failure of intelligence, given that the World Trade Centre was previously bombed in 1993, a clear 8 years before the second attack. It took the USA government nearly 12 years and hundreds of billions of dollars to locate and take out Osama Bin Laden. The bombing of the USS Cole was a failure of intelligence, as were the London train terror attacks and the killing of the USA ambassador to Libya in 2012.

    Nigerians must begin to appreciate that the war against terror is a long, painful but ultimately winnable effort. That the USA failed in this regard in Iraq and is failing in Afghanistan does not mean that we cannot win the war against Boko Haram. Nigerians should not be seduced by the false impression being created by a few individuals who are deluded by the objective nature of terrorism and who seek and even demand instant solution to a very complex situation.

    Hasn’t the Chibok incident exposed Jonathan as weak and tactless, and wouldn’t the situation have been better if he had acted earlier?

    Here you go again! Your question appears as a rehash of the verbalized mindset of a section of the Western media and their panegyric singers in Nigeria. Of course, President Jonathan is neither weak nor tactless. He has approached this national challenge with studied deliberation, focused commitment and quiet engagement with all the security and political related issues it has thrown up. The war against terror is not fought and won on the pages of newspapers, and neither is bellicose agitation nor self-opinionated hysteria the way to go forward. Our armed forces are daily placing their lives in the line of fire to bring these girls back. Our regional and international partners are on board to achieve a positive outcome with regard to this situation. Of course, the media have a huge role to play in raising awareness, in processing open source information and in calling for more action; that is, if a section of the media desists from its judgmental, mob trial approach in handling this very sensitive and emotional situation. What is required is cool headedness, tack, commonsense, patriotic solidarity among Nigerians and the pooling ofour individual and collective assets to aid the government to achieve the objective of bringing the girls back and defeating terrorism in our homeland.

    Let’s talk about politics ahead of 2015. The interplay of powerful forces in the polity calls for concern. What should be the minimum parameters for adjudging elections to be free and fair?

    Nigerian politicians and political stakeholders have a crucial role to play in driving forward the national democratisation process. As patriots, Nigeria should come first in all their political calculations, utterances and conducts. Whether in government or in opposition, politicians and political parties have a key stake in the success of the Nigeria Project, in the war against terror, in guaranteeing national security and in creating an enabling environment for successful elections to occur in 2015.

  • Wobbling democracy

    Wobbling democracy

    •Still a long way to go, 15 years after

    It is 15 years today since the current democratic dispensation started. As usual, at the beginning, many people were full of expectations that things would turn out well. Despite reservations about the military establishment and the system it had foisted on Nigeria, Nigerians, optimistic as ever, chose to trust the General Abdulsalami Abubakar administration with sincerity of purpose. And, when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo emerged President on May 29, 1999, it was thought that his wide experience as a former military Head of State, post-office involvement in negotiating peace and promoting good governance at home and abroad, would serve the country well. He was regarded by many as one who had seen enough of conflicts to understand that only good governance could promote peace, development and stability.

    However, 15 years after the civilians took over from the military, the journey to development has been very slow and jerky. Communal and religious conflicts and crises have threatened the very fabric of the society. Development has suffered greatly, despite token advancement in a few states, and the growth rates usually published as evidence of performance remain mere statistics that have failed to reflect in the general quality of living.

    The people are disenchanted. Democracy remains defined by tentativeness and tokenism. Those who largely buy their way into power sit on the throne belching out orders like potentates. They regard the people as foot mats and are adept at devising means of sidetracking the electorate in the electoral process. The result is impunity. They act to override the General Will.

    Over the years, Nigerians have become cynical. They do not trust governments at all levels, regarding office holders more as dealers than leaders. And, this is borne out by the mind-boggling corruption that has eaten very deep into the polity. The court registries are littered with files of corruption charges pressed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against former holders of high offices, whereas no progress is being made in justice delivery. For almost one decade, cases against the men of power charged with gross abuse of office are kept at the level of speculation and the same men and women desecrate higher offices, taking decisions binding on the people.

    Almost all institutions of state have failed. The Labour Movement that used to be a bulwark against autocracy, even under military rule, has suddenly lost its voice. The activism and vibrancy that underscored its operations as watchdog for the people have been lost to inexplicable docility. The political parties have not improved over the very primitive practices of the First Republic – candidates are imposed as rules are serially breached. Strongmen dictate the running of institutions expected to aggregate values and offer choice at the polls.

    Local governments remain mere tools in the hands of state chief executives and the ruling parties. When a governor mercifully permits an election to be held, he considers it sacrilegious that any party other than his could win the chairmanship of any council. In some cases, a few opposition councillors are allowed to emerge. In effect, the people at the grassroots are fenced off the democratic process and, when they choose to throw their hands in the air, the potentates continue looting the treasury and directing affairs.

    On the other hand, where there are strong opposition parties, realising that the ballot box is not a viable means of effecting regime change, local armies are created by candidates and parties, leading to blood-letting and the emergence of the strongest. Not the most popular.

    It is unfortunate that, despite this democratic dispensation being the most sustained in the country’s history since independence, the structure of governance remains as rickety as ever. It took only a little more than five years to truncate the process in the First Republic. Self-serving leaders had no compunction dealing mortal blows at the system and assailing democratic institutions. The legislature was used to subvert the constitution and an emergency rule was imposed on the Western Region. It was no surprise that the system collapsed on them all and an opportunistic and rapacious military elite took over, leading to a pogrom and a costly civil war. For 13 years, the military continued to bungle national affairs, inappropriately imposing a unitary system on a plural society.

    When the civilians returned in 1979, it was expected that things would have been set right. That was not the case. The National Party of Nigeria (NPN) that was installed in power could not manage victory, failed to be a rallying point for galvanising action for national development and utterly failed the democracy test. Again, it inexorably led to military take-over. Rotation of powers among different tendencies within the military set-up continued for almost 16 years at no benefit to the country and its people.

    The last six years of the military rule almost led to the country’s disintegration. General Ibrahim Babangida was literally chased out of power for playing games through a phony transition to a Third Republic. General Sani Abacha was a barefaced dictator. The anchorman for rule by the jackboots, General Abubakar, was therefore left with no choice but to hurry out of the power sanctum. He hurriedly organised another transition to civil rule during which a constitution was not agreed and those who contested did not know the terms spelt out in the grundnorm.

    Hence, the Fourth Republic started on a false and wobbly note. A critical section of the society boycotted the transition process and those who had lent their weight to the Abacha transmutation plot reaped the reward. But, it was expected that, in due course, the politicians would realise the benefits accruable to all by playing by the rule. They did not. They have kept subverting the constitution and the process and the President kept aggrandising power. The economy suffered the consequences, social relations ebbed.

    Insecurity has gripped the land, not just by armed robbers and kidnappers, but also by the Boko Haram Islamic sect that has become a blood-sucking demon in the last five years. But the sect stole too much for the owner to notice when on April 15 it abducted more than 200 female students of Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State. This has drawn the attention of the world to Nigeria, with the world powers now involved in efforts to get freedom for the abducted students, since the matter seems beyond the capability of our security agencies.

    In all, we find it difficult to award pass mark to the democratic system as practised in the past 15 years.  Of course we acknowledge that democracy is not a destination, but a journey. No doubt some progress has been made in policy formulation and a few oases of sanity could be located in some institutions and states. This is an indication that sustenance of the system could lead to eventual stability and deepening of the democratic culture.

    But the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan has to be more alive to his presidential responsibilities. The way and manner he has carried on so far does not inspire hope. He must change his style. For a leader to solve his country’s problems, he must believe those problems are there. We wonder how a president who says there is no poverty in Nigeria can take measures to address poverty; or how a president who distinguishes between stealing and corruption can see the need to vigorously curb stealing and corruption. Yet, unless we address these cankerworms, the country cannot make progress.

    There is no reason why democracy cannot work here if it is working in other places. That is why we urge active engagement by Nigerians and the civil society in resisting impunity and tyranny for Nigeria to survive. The civil society must wake up from its slumber. We are not yet there, and we cannot rest until we get there. What we need is not just the letter of democracy but the spirit of it. We can make it happen, if we want.

  • Lynching democracy in Rivers State

    Lynching democracy in Rivers State

    Anti-democratic forces are slowly lynching democracy in Rivers State. They include the rogues that vandalised a High Court in the state and burnt down another. They also include those that have undermined the integrity and independence of the judiciary and the legislature in Rivers State. Furthermore, those who have made security and governance tenuous in the state are among these disgruntled elements. Now with the legislature stymied, their target is to obfuscate the judiciary, and thereby render democracy in the state comatose.

    Agreed, disagreement in politics is ordinary; but that do not extend to emasculating the very institutions on which the democratic edifice is built. To do so is akin to pulling the rug from one’s feet. And the result will be a fatal fall. No doubt, the main dramatis personae in the state crisis are mostly from the state. From the state Governor, Rotimi Amaechi’s new political camp, the All Progressives Congress (APC), which is the majority party in the state, the alleged culprits in the crisis are led by the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    This camp includes the renegade speaker of the state assembly, Evans Bipi, who is obviously leading a minority group, in the state House of Assembly. This group is allegedly doing the bidding of the wife of the President, Dame Patience Jonathan, and by extension the President. According to the state Commissioner for Information, Mrs Ibim Semenitari and the APC spokesperson, Andy Nweye, the police should beam its search light on the PDP and their patrons, for burning down the court. They are perceived to have burnt the High Court to stop it from granting an interlocutory injunction against Mr. Bipi, having already granted an interim order, restraining him from parading himself as the House Speaker. The Ahaoda court was burnt on the eve of hearing the interlocutory application.

    The allegation against Bipi and his supporters should be investigated, considering that if he is supported by minority members of the state assembly, it is plausible that the court may stop him from parading himself as the authentic speaker of the state Assembly. So based on the fact in the public domain, the court most likely would have granted an interlocutory injunction against him. But that is mere suspicion; and what is important is for the police to follow the lead and other leads to determine those responsible for this reprehensible desecration of the temple of justice; even when some disenchanted persons in the state rather call it ‘temple of injustice’.

    The opponents of Governor Amaechi also hold him responsible for some of the crisis; as they insist that it was his supporters that allegedly burnt the High Court, to stop the court from vacating the interim injunction. While this argument is weaker, Governor Amaechi surely has contributed to the crisis in the judiciary in his state. Part of the challenges facing the judiciary in Rivers State was caused by Governor Amaechi’s avoidable squabbles with the National Judicial Commission. Regrettably, against the express provisions of the 1999 Constitution in Section 271(4); Governor Amaechi ill-advisedly appointed a Justice of the state Customary Court of Appeal to act as the Chief Judge.

    The tenuous argument of the state Attorney-General, who should know better was that, the judge appointed was the most senior in the judiciary; despite the express use of the word, ‘the most senior Judge of the High Court’ by the constitution. Now that the term of the unlawfully appointed acting Chief Judge has expired, it is in the interest of Governor Amaechi and the people of Rivers that the provisions of the constitution are respected in subsequent appointments. It is also left for the appellate courts to deal with the fall outs of things done by the illegitimate Chief Judge while purportedly in office.

    Rivers is surely in troubled times. However, to the chagrin of his political opponents, Governor Amaechi was able to corral the state legislature to pass the 2014 Appropriation Bill within the precincts of the Governor’s office, considering that the legislative chamber has been rendered unsafe. While the Governor’s supporters would deem it a master stroke, as politicians like to call such maneuvres, his opponents in the PDP are raising hell. In their opinion, the Act cannot stand the test of a judicial enquiry. Unfortunately for them, with the Speaker of the state Assembly reportedly presiding at the ‘arranged sitting’, the only argument that can affect the Act is where the extant procedure for summoning the House was not properly followed; and those left out, kick.

    But how did the state degenerate into this political asphyxiation? According to Governor Amaechi’s camp, the blame should lie at the door step of the wife of the President, who they allege, is seeking to control the affairs of the state, where she hails from. Another argument is that the Presidency is working to strangulate Governor Amaechi for daring to dream of contesting for Vice-President with a Northern presidential candidate, in 2015. While the President’s wife and his staff have denied these allegations, there is no doubt that arising from disagreements between the two political interests, what is euphemistically referred to as the federal might, has been unleashed to unsettle the governor. The governor, on his part, has turned a political guerrilla, and in the unmatched battle, is employing guerrilla tactics and propaganda to his aid.

    While the political combatants in Rivers are entitled to fight for the political soul of the state, they cannot justifiably destroy the very foundations of democracy in the process.

    Dear reader, here is wishing you, a happy New Year

     

     

     

     

     

  • Emergence of APC good for Nigeria’s democracy – Oyegun

    Emergence of APC good for Nigeria’s democracy – Oyegun

    Former governor of Edo, Chief Odigie Oyegun has said that Nigeria’s democracy is growing because the country has managed to improve the condition for a genuine democracy.

    He said the emergence of All Progressives Party (APC) has presented the people with a genuine choice.

    Oyegun stated this on Tuesday while fielding questions from journalists in Benin.

    He however noted that in spite of the progress made, much still needed to be done for Nigerians to enjoy full benefit of democracy.

    According to the former governor, “Though Nigerians can now choose between parties of equal strength, we still need free and fair elections so that the right to choice is not mortgage.

    “This is still lacking judging from recent elections in Delta and Anambra states. Elections conducted in these states tell us in clear terms that we have a long way to go in terms of free and fair election.”

    Oyegun said free and fair elections are basic and fundamental; otherwise, the politic can’t survive.

    On the defection of some People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governors to the APC, Oyegun said, “The PDP provided the platform for them to defect.”

    He said if not for the fact that the aggrieved governors and some members of the ruling party had an alternative; they would have remained in the PDP.

    “The fact that they have a strong vibrant and reliable alternative and the growing discontent; we would not have had the opportunity of welcoming this people to our fold,” he added.

    On the two governors who backed out of the defection plan at the last minute, Oyegun attributed it to the peculiar political environment in which the governors operate.

    According to him, “This is because people have their different level of courage, tolerance and consideration of timing of what they will do and what they will not do.

    “What we have are those who are determined, courageous and bold that Nigeria truly needs a change.”

  • Democracy, the police and 2015

    emocracy has been defined variously by many scholars; Thowever, certain features describe its essence and, thus, make it important as the right system of choosing representatives of the people. One of such is accountability. Democracy assumes that every elected representative of the people is, and should be accountable to those people who gave them mandate ab initio. In the same way, every government, constituted in a democracy, is accountable to the people from whom it derives its existence. Another feature is the credibility of the process of elections through which the representatives emerge. This must be guaranteed for democracy to be meaningful.

    In Nigeria, despite the several hitches in our present democratic journey, it is heart-warming that we have had 13 years of continuous democratic experience. This, in itself, is quite significant in view of the fact that our previous efforts at entrenching democracy in the polity were either aborted midway or simply brought to us dead on arrival. However, now that democracy is steadily being nurtured in our system, it is pertinent to note that this is the time to encourage certain tendencies that would further help in consolidating its basic principles and values in the country.

    One of such is the need to emphasize the central role of the police in achieving success of democracy. Indeed, one key element that defines a democratic society is the availability of an impartial police- a police that is subject to the rule of law, a police that will protect rather than bully the people to carry out the wishes of some powerful people, a police force that will intervene in the life of citizens only under limited and carefully controlled circumstances and a police that is publicly accountable. Such is the police force that will command respect from the public in a democracy.

    Over the years, we have had ugly experiences of police acting partially in support of a ruling party. One worrying aspect of such open display of bias in favour of the party in power is evil connivance with anti- democratic elements to thwart the electoral process. From the First Republic till date, the police have always been involved in shameful scheming that tends towards partisan tendencies which scuttle the right of the people to freely elect their representatives.

    It is disheartening remembering how, in the Second Republic, the police were openly aiding electoral malpractices, such as ballot box snatching, unlawful arrest and intimidation of voters and other shameful acts. Indeed, the police, that time, did not hide its partisanship as an appendage of the then ruling National Party of Nigeria, (NPN). Similarly, the police, during the Obasanjo administration, played ignominious role in conniving with the then Maurice Iwu-led INEC to make a mockery of the democratic aspirations of many Nigerians. That time, Iwu and his partners, rather than give Nigerians the result of their elections at the polling booths, only allocated votes to parties from the corner of INEC office. Thanks to the judicial process that overturned some of the fraudulent outcomes of such connivance.

    Unfortunately, we have started witnessing another needless police harassment of people who express their rights to freedom of expression and association as guaranteed by our constitution. The recent clampdown on the G7 PDP governors gives an impression that the country is yet to get out of the problem of police involvement in politics. The same goes for the drama playing out in Rivers State where the state Commissioner of Police is unnecessarily getting himself involved politicking. The sad thing about what is currently going on in Rivers State is that the leadership of the state’s police command has become so enmeshed in the politics of the moment that it is difficult to see how it could become impartial in the event of an election in the state.

    In a democracy, the ideal thing is for police powers to be used according to the rule of law and not for the flagrant abuse of the ruler or other perceived powers-that-be. This is because the police force is so important that it can be a major pillar or a major threat to a democratic society. Police are such moral and legal actors that may protect democracy by their example of reverence for the law and by suppressing crime. The police must, therefore, not be a law unto themselves.

    In spite of strong pressures and temptations, the police should resist the tendency to act in an overtly political manner and should not serve the partisan interests of the party in power. Their purpose must not be to enforce political conformity. The police force should have no colour, whether political, religious or social. Also, holding unpopular beliefs or behaving in unconventional, yet legal, ways are not adequate grounds for interfering with citizen’s liberty as the police have an obligation to protect the rights of every citizen.

    It is important to emphasise that in a democracy, the police should act as the protector of the rights of everyone.  Democratic societies strive for equal law enforcement. Hence, citizens are to be treated in equivalent ways. Police are trained to behave in a generally suitable manner such that even if their personal attitude departs from the demands of the role they are playing, this must not affect their behaviour. Police should always show neutrality when they enforce the rules regardless of the characteristics of the persons or group involved.

    As we build up for another critical electioneering period, the police need to become more professional and dispassionate in the way they carry out their constitutional duties. It is sheer ignorance that makes the police to act as a stooge of the ruling party in a multi-party democracy. The reality is that the police are more answerable to the people, who voted the government into power, rather than the ruling party or government which derives legitimacy from the people. A situation where the police see opposition parties and their leaders as enemies of the state (who must be crushed) is, to say the least, crude and unprofessional.

    Very soon, we are going to have elections in Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states. In order to ensure that the democratic wishes of people in these states are not trampled upon, the leadership of the Nigerian Police Force needs to re-orientate its people about their constitutional role in a democracy. Members of the civil society, NGOs and other stakeholders equally have a huge role to play in re-orientating the police to embrace democratic tendencies. The Nigerian military have, to a large extent, demonstrated sufficient understanding of its role as a neutral force in a democracy. In the last 13 years, the military has been able to professionally uphold democratic values and principles. Unfortunately, same cannot be said of the police, perhaps because they are more civilian in nature and thus tend not to see why they should not have positions or preferences for political groupings.

    This is the right time for the police to embrace noble democratic ideals that would enhance the stability of the polity. We already have enough problems to contend with as a nation. We cannot, therefore, afford to add an unprofessional and partisan police to the list of our already gargantuan challenges. The police, no matter the pressure and intimidation, should remain non-partisan. This is the only way to ensure that the democratic right of the people, to freely elect their representatives, is protected. Our hope and prayer is for a Nigeria where justice, peace and the rule of law reign supreme and this is the time to entrench that.

    •Ibirogba is Hon. Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Lagos State