The Nation Newspaper

Tag: democracy

  • The Pace of a Snail captures Nigeria’s democracy

    THE recent performance by Reflector Theatre Troupe based in Yenagoa to commiserate the 14th Anniversary of democracy in Nigeria with a play titled The Pace of a Snail aptly captures the event and mood of the citizens in this period of democratic experience.

    Aimed at reviving the culture of stage performance to stimulate talented actors to engage in the business of play production on stage, the play was written by Victor Oroyi. The Pace of a Snail explores a character of a woman who traverses the creeks of Niger Delta, started her primary education through a political campaign strategy of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo who built schools for rural dwellers but today, politicians do not only betray the tenets of democratic values in Nigeria, the electorate are impoverished in the midst of abundant wealth while they build high walls.

    Promise Abiri, a director and music teacher brought his wealth of directorial experience to give artistic interpretation to the play using the theatre theory of minimalism to tell the story employing the various aesthetics values of African drama of songs, dance, dirge and simple costume to dramatize the piece to the delight of his audience.

  • Akpabio: Abiola watered seeds of democracy

    Akpabio: Abiola watered seeds of democracy

    Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State yesterday paid tribute to the late politician and business mogul, Chief MKO Abiola, saying “he watered the seeds of democracy we are enjoying today”.

    The governor debunked, for the umpteenth time, that he rigged election in favour of a member of the National Assembly.

    He noted that what was often referred to as rigging was a pre-primaries consultation and preparation of a suitable aspirant, which was done to protect the interest of the people of Ini and Ikono local governments of the Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District, who are in the minority with only two councils.

    Akpabio spoke at the 20th anniversary of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election organised by the June 12 Movement at the Ikeja home of the Abiolas. It was chaired by an Afenifere chieftain, Chief Ayo Adebanjo.

    Represented by his Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Aniekan Umanah, the governor said he needed to clear the wrong impression “because of the campaign of calumny against me and to put the record straight on what happened before the senatorial election in my state. I did not rig any election. In fact, I have never and will never rig any election because I am a product of free and fair elections, which Chief Abiola stood, fought and died for.”

    Akpabio said: “Abiola paid the supreme price. He died so that we may live and savour the joy of a free people. Freedom, which is concomitant with democracy, is not negotiable. It is an inalienable right of every human being. That was what Abiola fought and died for and we must not allow that death to be in vain. We must continue to engage our leaders until our collective dignity as a people is fully realised and restored.”

    He went on: “Because democracy cannot be said to have thrived without its fruits, which are democracy dividends, my administration in the last six years did its best to live MKO Abiola’s dream of a better society for Nigerians by turning around the living conditions of my people for good”.

  • Knocks for democracy, leadership at special session

    It was knocks all the way yesterday for the nation’s democracy and its leadership. Two prominent guest lecturers and scholars, former presidential candidate of the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC) and Political Economist, Prof. Pat Utomi and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Lagos State University, Prof. Abubakar Momoh, berated Nigerian leaders at the special parliamentary session in commemoration of the second anniversary of the Seventh Assembly and 20 years anniversary of the June 12, 1993 election.

    They came down hard on the government and leadership at all levels.

    The theme of the anniversary was: ‘June 12 and the entrenchment of democracy in Nigeria’.

    Utomi said there is a deep erosion of the legitimacy of the nation’s democratic process and since no government can function without legitimacy, there is need to recover the legitimacy if governance must live up to its responsibility of catering for the welfare of the people and ensuring economic development.

    In his lecture, entitled: ‘Democracy, the rule of law and role of the legislature’, he said: “Our democracy has lost its legitimacy over the years. Unless we have a clear democracy where people speak through the ballot box, we cannot have the kind of legitimacy we need. We are determined as a people; we can prevent abusers from leading us to where we are today.”

    While decrying the regime of impunity, especially among the leadership and their cronies, Utomi urged the legislature to rise up to the occasion because it is better placed as the representative of the people.

    He said it should ensure it churns out laws to check the tendency and ensure the law is applied.

    Maintaining that enough has not been done to recognise the importance of June 12 for the nation’s history, Utomi said: “Today is a day to celebrate passion, commitment and courage of a man and other actors that made June 12 historical.

    “Prof. Humphrey Nwosu was a man that changed the course of history forever in this country. He managed to give Nigeria a credible election no one could dispute.”

    Momoh, who spoke on the topic, ‘20 years after June 12, which way Nigeria’, said the poll has certain meanings and symbolism that should not be lost, adding that June 12 is an idea and not about MKO Abiola. “It is beyond MKO Abiola.”

  • Minister urges military support for democracy

    The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed has called on the Nigerian Armed Forces to continue to support democratic institutions as the nation celebrates Democracy Day.

    The minister made the call while receiving the Chief of Air Staff who paid him a visit.

    Mohammed remarked that the call had become necessary, especially with the security challenges being experienced in some parts of the country.

    The minister stressed that their support would further strengthen democratic tenets, which by extension, will fast-track the development of the entire country.

    He urged the Armed Forces to key into the Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan as the agenda is all-encompassing; taking care of even minute sub-sector of the society.

    According to him, their keying-in and collaboration would go a long way in assisting even the leadership of the Armed Forces to leave landmark achievements and legacy for future generations.

    He assured that all plots meant for the Armed Forces in the Federal Capital Territory would be sorted out to enable them to commence development in earnest.

    While appreciating the security cover the Armed Forces have been providing in and around the 8,000 square kilometres of the Federal Capital Territory, especially the role Nigerian Air Force has been playing at the Abuja Airport, the Minister promised to continue to partner with the security agencies in the Territory.

    He said that the sales of the Federal Government houses in the FCT is a continuous process, even as he assured that houses being occupied by military personnel in Apo, Gudu District will be sold to them in accordance with the regulations.

    On the 110 hectares of land the Nigerian Air Force allegedly bought from some land racketeers in Kyami District, Senator Mohammed directed the Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority through the Urban and Regional Planning to, within two weeks, provide a better alternative because the District has already been allocated to genuine owners with title documents.

    The minister advised that anybody wishing to make transaction on any plot of land in the FCT should first make verifications on the status of such plots from the FCT Administration to reduce scam and corruption pervading the sub-sector; especially as it affects the area councils’ plots.

    His words: “Kyami District in the Federal Capital City has already been allocated with people holding subsisting legal titles because the District is not meant for mass housing projects.”

    The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh complained that the Nigerian Air Force bought some plots of land amounting to about 110 hectares in Lugbe and later discovered that the area council allocation could no longer be accessed.

    He praised Senator Mohammed for the good work he has been doing in the Federal Capital Territory, promising to collaborate with the FCT Administration by exploiting new frontiers.

  • Their ‘Democracy Day’

    Their ‘Democracy Day’

    It was entirely in character that the ruling PDP and its cohorts celebrated their “Democracy Day” in the penumbra of a brazen evisceration of a fundamental tenet of democracy that calls to mind the annulment, with the active collaboration of some of the very elements that now constitute its hierarchy, of the June 12, 1993, presidential election.

    They rejected the clear outcome of that election, just as they have now rejected the unambiguous outcome of an election for the chair of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. The quisling they trotted out in 1993 as head of an Interim National Government they confected to supplant the democratic choice of the Nigerian electorate was again trotted out as one of the stalwarts of their democracy.

    So was the civilian president who for just a little more than four years presided over a government so inept and corrupt that the military that had handed power to him after 13 years in the saddle felt obliged to topple him.

    Their “Democracy Day” has as its foundation May 29 1999, the day a military that had exhausted itself and driven Nigeria to the edge of ruin handed over the reins to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, based on a Constitution he had not seen and the content of which he did not know.

    It was a false foundation, and since then, Nigeria has been struggling just to muddle through with rare instances of mastery, and a penchant for celebrating mere intentions as if they were actual accomplishments.

    For the most part, President Goodluck Jonathan tried to keep that penchant in abeyance when he presented his Administration’s report card on the first two years of his four-year term and challenged his compatriots to issue their own report cards if they disagreed with the official assessment.

    The verdict?

    A solid pass on a wide range of metrics. And they reeled out all kinds of figures to back it up.

    For the past two years, the economy has been nothing if not superheated, growing at an average. 7 percent yearly. The macro-economic and micro-economic policy environment has been stable, as has the exchange rate. Non-oil exports have almost displaced oil as Nigeria’s chief source of foreign exchange. Inflation has been kept on a tight leash.

    A Sovereign Wealth Fund has been created to guarantee Nigeria a stream of revenue from investments. The commercial banks that were teetering on the edge just three years ago have been rescued and are now doing roaring business.

    The trains that vanished more than a decade ago are back on the rehabilitated tracks, ferrying passengers and freight on the Lagos-Kano line, with shuttle services between major cities on the route. The re-furbished Kaduna-Port Harcourt line is expected to commence operation soon.

    Work is to commence, finally, on rebuilding what used to be the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway but is now so cratered that long stretches of it might be mistaken for a moonscape. The East-West highway now has a better chance of being completed than ever. The nation’s inland waterways have been primed for resumed navigation.

    Power supply regrettably still falls short of expectation, but that will soon be a thing of the past when the power stations being built are completed.

    During the period under review, some 15 new public universities were established, and a good many of them are up and running. The favourable environment created by the Administration has also spawned several private universities, with more projected.

    Agriculture is set for a major boost, what with new arrangements for supplying fertilisers directly to farmers rather than to rent-seeking middlemen, setting up industrial-scale rice mills all over the country to process the bounteous harvest expected from improved seedlings provided by the government.

    And, yes, the war on official corruption is being waged earnestly and vigorously

    And so on and so forth.

    It is in the nature of this kind of report to be self-aggrandizing. Much in it belongs in the realm of aspiration. Some of the assertions fly in the face of the facts. The controversial pardon the President granted former Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who was convicted in Nigeria of corruption and money laundering after fleeing from British justice does not square up with the claim that official corruption is being battled with vigour.

    There is no denying, however that much in the report card qualifies as substantive achievement, for which Dr Jonathan and his Administration can justly claim credit.

    At the same time, the matter has to be put in the proper perspective

    The economy has been growing at a fast, almost dizzying speed. But who has been reaping the benefits? Certainly not employees whose wages have remained stagnant, or workers who go unpaid for months on end, or pensioners pining away in the forlorn hope of receiving their stipends. And most definitely not hundreds of thousands of thousands of qualified young men and women able and willing to work but unable to find work several years after taking their degrees and diplomas.

    The trains may be back on the tracks, but they are shabby and ponderously slow, with the so-called Lagos-Kano Express taking two full days and sometimes longer to chug its way through the 1,020 km (700 miles) route. That train may be preferred to no train at all, but in the age of the bullet train, it is not the kind of transportation any government should be advertising as a great achievement.

    In the First Republic, Prime Minister Abubakar Tawafa Balewa used to ride the train all the way from Lagos to Bauchi whenever he was on vacation. None of the government officials touting the return of the trains as a major achievement has boarded the train even for the short trip from Abuja to Kaduna. Not even the Minister of Transport.

    Information Minister Labaran Maku has been going round the country on a “good governance” tour to showcase the achievements of the Federal Government. At every stop, he cites the return of the trains as one of its transcendent achievements. But he hops from one top to the next in an executive jet.

    In a world of brute empiricism and economism, it is easy to lose sight of the question that really matters when the performance of any government is being assessed. That question is this: To what extent has public policy improved the human condition?

    Growth is not enough. It is a measure of the perversity of economic science that the economy can show phenomenal growth even as popular misery deepens. Growth has to be matched by development.

    According to the late British economist Dudley Seers, the questions to be asked about a country’s development are these:

    What has been happening to poverty?

    What has been happening to unemployment?

    What has been happening to inequality?

    “If all three have declined from high levels,” Seers wrote, “then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country concerned.”

    Conversely, Seers continued, “If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse, especially if all three have, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’ even if per capita income doubled.” (emphasis added.)

    This is the line of thinking that should concentrate Dr Jonathan’s mind and indeed the minds of all officials vested with political authority.

    At the start of each day, they should ask themselves: What can I do today to improve the human condition in Nigeria? And at the end of each day, they should ask themselves: What have I done today to improve the human condition in Nigeria?

     

  • Labour, govt bicker over dividends of democracy

    Labour, govt bicker over dividends of democracy

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has scored the Federal Government low on job creation and that for those in employment, job security is an issue. However, the Minister of Information and Communication, Mr Labaran Maku, disagrees. He said the Jonathan administration is doing well. DUPE OLAOYE-OSINKOLU reports.

    Union leaders have lamented the loss of jobs and the government’s inability to create new ones.

    The President, National Union of Chemical, Footwear, Rubber, Leather And Non Mettalic Products Employees (NUCFRLANMPE), Comrade Boniface Isok, recalled how epileptic power supply killed many businesses.

    For example, this compelled the relocation of Michelin Tyre and Dunlop Tyre from Nigeria to South Africa and Ghana, he said.

    The relocation of these companies erased jobs, he said. He said the greatest challenge for the nation’s democracy is unemployment. He lamented the continued loss of jobs in the chemical sector, which has made his union lose many members.

    In their own assessment of democracy, civil servants under the aegis of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), spoke through their Secretary-General, Comrade Bashir Alade Lawal. They said the greatest challenge of democracy is the refusal of the ruling elite to play according to the rules.

    “The culture of impunity persists and the workers are not seen and regarded as one of the social partners that have a significant role to play in moving the country forward. Engaging government on issues affecting workers is becoming very difficult as our rulers feel reluctant to come to the negotiating table. They see themselves as sole proprietor of our common patrimony and anybody outside the clique, a stranger that should be kept at bay. That explains why most of the problems bedevilling the country are defying solutions,” said ASCSN.

    The President, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Comrade Babatunde Ogun, said the greatest challenge of democracy is lack of its understanding by the political class. He said this is why many of them give in to greed and corruption.

    “Our nation is bedevilled with corruption and selfishness. Lack of unity within the rank and files. This has greatly affected governance, our legislators have not paid any attention to decent work tenets that can protect all workers but interested only in how to remain in office and make more money, labour has not gained much under the so called democracy and our legal systems. The oil and gas sector has done quite well, but lack of policy and political intrigues and policy cum agreement summersault has not allowed the industry to attain the desired result,” he said.

    The Minister of Information and Communication, Labaran Maku, however, disagreed with the labour leaders. He said the programme of the Transformation Agenda of Mr President is targeted at job creation, the economic environment and also social activities to create job for the youths and women.

    “Mr President has taken the bull by the horn. We believe that for our country to develop, we must create employment opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths. The programme of the Transformation Agenda of Mr President is targeted at job creation the economic environment and also social activities to create job for the youths and women.

    “In the first phase of the Community Services Women and Youth Employment Project, we have over 3,400 women and youths who were formerly unemployed but are now gainfully employed by the scheme with additional 2,000 more to join within the next few months and this is not going on in Delta State alone, but in all the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory. In the past 15 to 20 years, no government has been able to do this on a sustainable base. Now we have a president that is determined to tackle the challenges of unemployment.

    “This programme is also designed to solve problems at the community level, the community is also benefiting from the programme through community services, such as tree planting, traffic control, street cleaning and sanitation, among others.

    Also, the Labour Minister, Chief Emeka Wogu, also said the government has delivered on it promises. “In January 2011, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan promised to alleviate the impact of the fall out of the partial removal of fuel subsidy, he has fulfilled these promises. Evidence before us today confirm that he has done so through the Community Service, Women and Youth Employment (CSWYE) Project, one of the project components under the Social Safety Net Programme (SSNP), which is just one out of the eight programmes under the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) of the Federal Government,” he said.

  • Democracy as travelling theatre:

    Democracy as travelling theatre:

    The vastly urbanised and cosmopolitan Yoruba people of Nigeria have a sub-genre embedded in their prodigious dramatic repertoire. It is known as Alarinjo or Travelling Theatre. It is mobile and instant theatre enacted to a background of music and dancing. It is an amusing and riveting spectacle, but it can also become a vehicle of savage social and political satire’

    This is the Seventh Stage of politics as drama in Nigeria. The six other stages are exclusively devoted to Farce, Burlesque, Melodrama, Pantomime, Tragicomedy and of course Ritual. Given the pantomime buffoonery of the past fortnight, it does seem as if Nigerian democracy has learnt something from Yoruba dramaturgy.

    Last Wednesday, it was time once again for the annual national pilgrimage to the ritual shrine of democracy in Nigeria. Whenever democracy becomes this routinised and ritualised, you can be sure that it has been emptied of all its formal content. For in the final analysis, it is not what you say about democracy that matters but what you do about it. Democracy is a habit and not an antic. The anti-democratic panjandrums who rule Nigeria must be chuckling to themselves at this huge national swindle.

    Nevertheless on May 29, Nigerians from all walks of life and across the political divides, celebrated the fourteenth anniversary of civil rule and nascent democracy. So far, it has been the longest uninterrupted stretch of civilian administration in the history of the country. It was by all accounts a mixed celebration, reflecting the dominant mood of a nation that has entered uncharted waters in a perpetual quest for democratic self-actualisation.

    For many, it was a time for sober introspection and reflection about the fate of the country. For others, it was a time to roll out the drums of modest celebrations. To those who wore mournful looks of apprehension and unease, the tally of democratic dividends is in gross deficit. To this band of conscientious objectors, the stark realities on the ground, and the anti-democratic posturing of the upper echelons of the ruling party, is a cause for national anxiety. Darkness may be visible indeed.

    Yet for many others who trade in optimism like political stockbrokers, we have not done too badly given the circumstances. There is no ideal democratic society anywhere in the world. There has never been. Every human society must negotiate with its own dark demons on the perilous road to democratic emancipation. But where and when the demons win, not even the dead or the martyrs of democratic struggle will be safe.

    Democracy has its dark drama, its dismal dissimulation and dire dissembling. Sometimes it creeps in most often after momentous exertions by the populace. At other times, it steals out like an unwanted guest often after serious dereliction by the political elite. In a society fraught with explosive contradictions, nobody is sure of just when enough will be enough.

    But above the din of contention, a most sober assessment holds that what we should be celebrating is not the consecration and consolidation of democratic tenets and habits but the absence of formal military rule. If the soldiers remain in the barracks despite sore temptations, we may yet fumble and wobble our way out of the woods.

    It is perhaps in keeping with the aggregate mood of the country that the celebrations in Abuja have been modest and muted. A state of emergency in a democratic set up is an emergency for the state itself. In a low-keyed ceremony, the government of Goodluck Jonathan reeled out its achievements in the face of widespread question marks over its competence and capability.

    But in a development suffused with dramatic irony, while Jonathan was defending his competence and lashing out at his implacable detractors, his benefactor and political patron, the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was in nearby Jigawa state issuing an oblique but well judged fatwah against his former protégé. With Socratic acerbity, the former president noted that you could help a person get a job but you cannot help them do the job.

    It was a sensational vote of no confidence and a damning report card from the man who had set the exams and formulated its grading rubrics. Obasanjo had single-handedly propelled Goodluck Jonathan from the joyous obscurity of his tidal backwater state to the dizzying heights of the Nigerian presidency. If he is now publicly flinging the confidential evaluation of his own student and political apprentice at the Nigerian populace and putative electorate, it amounts to a public declaration of hostilities and an indication that 2015 will be one hell of rowdy and riotous endgame.

    But Obasanjo should be the least of Jonathan’s worries and woes. The country is unlikely to trust the judgement of the retired general again. He has been tested severally and found wanting in this department of leadership selection. When without any touch of irony, he was magisterially pronouncing on Jonathan, he was also at the same time publicly pronouncing on the soundness of his own judgement and his capacity for rational and patriotic evaluation of the nation’s leadership needs. The system of preferment he has put in place is as ruinous of true merit as it is redolent of malice and mendacity.

    The wily military strategist may be stalking some bigger game in the jungle. It may well be that General Obasanjo does not really care a hoot about who succeeds Jonathan as long as he has damaged him beyond re-election and as long as he succeeds in stripping the government he has installed of its last shred of credibility and legitimacy. This is the typical endgame and grudge match in which the general seems to excel. In that case, Sule Lamido himself must beware of a Greek gift.

    For the good people of Nigeria who have been sidelined as usual and forced to become idle spectators at this unfolding play of giants, the good news is that there is time for everything. Given the current power configuration in the nation and the dispersal of political authority within the dominant, residual and emergent hegemonic blocs, one individual, however powerful and pre-eminent, can no longer single-handedly determine who will rule Nigeria.

    Long out of power, with his political stock vastly diminished, without a political base and with virtually all the IOUs called in, the general reminds one of a political dinosaur stranded by choice. The omens are dire and he should read the handwriting on the wall. Unlike the northern power masters who often treat him with grace and civility in recognition of past services, the emergent hegemonic bloc does not seem to have the cultural grace for such niceties.

    They are prone to a feckless impudence which does not recognise past achievements or current distinctions. They are already sending ominous warning signals of impending demystification in his direction. If he does not take the cue and if the ascendant power bloc comes under intense political pressures, as it is bound to be in the coming months, it might set the House of Lugard ablaze. Long accustomed to hunting with the hounds while running with the hares, Jonathan may yet prove Obasanjo’s ultimate political nemesis just as Abacha almost turned out to be his military nemesis.

    There is a feeling of Déjà vu in the air. Something tells Snooper that we have passed this terrain before but in a military guise. The current conjuncture hauntingly reminds one of the early days of General Abacha’s reign of terror. After the freest and fairest election in the history of the nation was annulled, the opportunist miscalculations of the Nigerian dominant power bloc paved the way for a general who had no time for their posturing and pretences. The military, the caliphate and their southern power coolies paid very dearly for this.

    The goggled one strolled where angels feared to thread. He was ferociously feckless. At that point in time, two generals, Obasanjo and Yar’Adua, bestrode the political stage, huffing and puffing with hubristic self-importance. Yours sincerely in an article titled “Martyrs Arising” admonished the two military colossi, warning that in some paradoxical and inexplicable manner they may yet become martyrs of the unfolding democratic drama.

    Early in Abacha’s tenure, this writer asked the perceptive and brilliant Patrick Wilmot what he thought was the critical difference between General Babangida and General Abacha, Wilmot shot back that the difference was that Abacha was not intelligent enough to know fear. A few months later, Abacha summarily impounded both generals. Yar’Adua did not live to tell the story and Obasanjo escaped by some miraculous provenance.

    Once again, the Nigerian Theatre is travelling and the political road show is on. Like the Alarinjo, no one is sure when the joke and the fun will turn serious and morbid, or when the irreverent satire will metastasise into a vehicle for huge social commotion. Given the ongoing desecration of all known democratic norms and tenets, one can only conjecture that it will not be long. Like all dramas of human existence, it is impossible to distinguish between playing actors and acting players. Only time can tell.

  • Democracy Day Blues

    The people want life to be more possible so that the president will not enjoy his score card alone; they want to help enjoy it too.

    This is no exaggeration, but living in Nigeria has become like using your fingernails to scratch away at the sides of a mountain until it becomes flat like the ground. So you go scrape, scratch, scrape at the thing: buying endless fuel cans for your generators (if you have one), putting one cement block over another to give your loved ones shelter (when you can), battling daily on the road with unruly, unrefined and uneducated taxi-drivers and motorcycle-riders and generally having to deal with Nigerians who are nice to foreigners but grumpy to their fellow countrymen (and women). In all these, you hope against hope that as you scratch away at the mountain, the mountain will somehow give way to your puny efforts, failing which some angel with wings would give a helping hand and whisk you away onto an uninhabited island where there are no Nigerians. Well, they do say hope springs eternal.

    On democracy day, like all other Nigerians, I was therefore only too glad to observe a public holiday not because I wanted to greet democracy but because I love work-free days and use them to dream up get-away schemes. Left to me, I think all days should be democracy days so we can have an endless number of work-free days. Know what I found? Many people think like me. On May 29, many stayed at home, not really because they wanted to nurture democracy and help it to grow in their little corners, but because they welcomed a chance to rest their feet from trudging the streets in the effort to eke out an existence from the uphill living Nigeria offers most of us.

    The most absurd part about the whole democracy day business still remains the tortuous route it took to get to us. I mean, when you ponder that it came through one of the most renownedly undemocratic blusterers in history, you can only think that the poor thing arrived LOD – Lame On Delivery. I believe that is why the entire democratic enterprise in Nigeria limps to the highest heavens to this day. Just look at us. Our National Assembly has no idea what to do with either the country or itself; we the people have neither the knowledge nor the will to throw out the entire structure and build for ourselves a system that best defines our nature as Nigerians and Africans with peculiar problems; and a presidency more involved in looking in the mirror and seeing its well torsoed chests carrying very expensive name tags incidentally called ‘2015’. But we limp on.

    So, like I said, many of us stayed home on democracy day to give ourselves a break from all the scratching at life thing so that we will not have to be grumpy at other Nigerians for a nice change. Believe me, a life of perpetual grumpiness not only gets boring but is most tiring. Instead, I used the day to ponder on what there is to gain or lose from the kind of democracy we have, where we are getting it, what we can do to fix its wrongs and generally indulge in some good ol’ standard issue blues. I started by thinking about what is right with it … mmmm … Ok, the next one – what exactly have we gained from this democratic venture?

    By last count, not much. To begin with, as I sat down to think, I soon found myself perspiring for the sun was high in the sky, the icebergs were melting, global warming was going on against all my orders to be still and all that, and there was no electricity to make the fans move and provide some respite. In short, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will hopefully not be forever more. For now though, there was no electricity to help me think. I turned myself to the showers. The taps were not exactly dry. No, sir, they were past dry, they went silent a long while back. Oh, have I mentioned that now, thanks to this democracy, I can hardly travel freely in the country? I cannot even now sleep with my two eyes closed, but luckily, I use four. All these basic things are still wrong yet the country spends billions and billions of Naira each year on its democratic structures. So, exactly how would you be wanting me to reckon this democracy for me to gain the simplest thing?

    Just some days ago, I read a report in which our president was said to have given his administration a pass score for a job well done in this their first-half assessment, and well he should. The only problem is that the rest of us do not quite understand that scoring system because I really have not met a student who has been called on to assess him/herself. That would make the work of the teacher very superfluous indeed. The president then berated the rest of us for not using a known and clear ‘marking guide’ in our assessment of his administration. Yes, but is it not an axiom that whoever sets an examination usually provides the marking guide? But this is neither here nor there. What is important is that we all should understand the concept of democracy and here is my take.

    Surely, to the known world, democracy is that means of governance by which the people get together, point out a few among them to go and govern the rest for the sake of peace and quiet. It takes for granted that whoever is elected would listen to the people, respect them and help to make life less of a grind for them. It also takes for granted that when the people perceive that the said elected officials have ceased to respect or help or listen to them, the people know exactly what to do with and about them. Boot them out.

    Alas, in all of Nigeria’s democratic republics, no single set of elected officials has shown any inkling of what it has been elected or sent to do other than to frolic. And so, from the time of the institution of democracy in Nigeria, we have been unfortunate to have one set of frolickers or the other in astonishingly ascending degrees and the people have been paying the price. So, brace up folks, for we the people obviously have a lot more paying to do.

    The experience of most sane countries is that the government constitutes no more than a small percentage of human labour, large-scale industries no more than a small percentage of the national economy, while the rest is made up of small-scale life savers. For the economy to run efficiently, therefore, every organ of the economy requires a great deal of self-determination in which it can rely on the fact that white is white, black is black, and every little decision cannot be interfered with by the president.

    Clearly, it is time to call out the democratic umpire. No democracy can thrive in a colony of ants that refuses to know and respect the positions, authorities and limits of its members. They will all soon go array and awry. Let the umpire tell us: have we got it (democracy) or have we lost it (our good sense)? I think we have not got it, and I think we have completely lost it. For one thing, the government needs to realise that the people want to be respected. Democracy requires mutual respect between the elector and the elected. For another, we the people want life to be a little more possible so that the president will stop enjoying his score card alone. Let us the people enjoy it too.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • PDP, ACN, ANPP: Where is internal democracy?

    PDP, ACN, ANPP: Where is internal democracy?

    Have the political parties added value to democracy? MUSA ODOSHIMOKHE examines the challenges confronting the platforms.

     

    At the blast of the whistle in 1999, three political parties -the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the All Peoples Party (APP), which later became the All Nigerian People Party (ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) contested the first general elections. However, the number of the parties later increased to 63.

    In the 2011 elections, only 10 of the parties won seats in the National Assembly and Houses of Assembly, a development which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) explained, was not good enough.

    INEC said it was no longer wise for some of these parties to be sustained on tax payers’ money without making impact in the polity. This led to the axing of 28 political parties on December 6, 2012 and went ahead de-registered another seven later.

    Though the decision was criticised, INEC went ahead to justify the action based on the provisions of Section 7 of the Electoral Act, 2011. And currently INEC has not more than 37 political parties in its kitty and more are likely to go as 2015 draws nearer.

    While the INEC is mopping up the political climate to make it healthier, three major political parties; the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress of Progressive Change (CPC), and a faction of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) decided to form a mega party the All Progressives Congress (APC), in order to wrest power from the ruling PDP.

    As theAPC formalises its registration process, another association, All African Congress (APC), said it has forwarded an application to the INEC for registration as a political party.

    Although INEC has explained that the association had not met the requirements for registration, the association had gone to court over the matter and the outcome is being awaited. This and other challenges have dogged the polity and how they would be resolved is generating more interests.

    ACN Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the use of his party acronym by another association though in court, would not in any way affect the registration of APC.

    He said: “I think Nigerians should be properly educated on this matter. As at today, there is no political party that is known with acronym of APC. There is a political association with the name African Peoples Congress (APC) whose application has been received by INEC and INEC says that it had not met certain conditions. Now that the party had gone to court to challenge the power of INEC, I will not want to comment any further.

    Defending its credibility, ANPP chieftain, Mallam Ibrahim Sekarau explained that issues of internal democracy is far from what APC will contend because the party came up in the first place to salvage the country and would not be drawn aback by such narrow interests.

    He said: “APC will fill vacant party offices and those that will contest 2015 election based on geo-political zones. No region or zone would be given the chance to dominate others just for the sake of political domination.”

    Former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar at the Golden Jubilee of the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, lashed out at the major parties for lack of internal democracy.

    He accused them of promoting politics of god-fatherism and dictatorship since the country returned to civil rule in 1999.

    The lack of internal democracy in some of the parties has snowballed into legal battle. For instance, the composition of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) made some members to inevitably go to court to challenge its composition with the electoral umpire saying the PDP did not comply with laid down regulations.

    But the party’s National Vice Chairman Southwest, Ishola Filani debunked the INEC claim.

    “Our party has maintained internal democracy and there is no crisis that we cannot handle. We sit together and discuss matters. Those who went to court have not really come out with any report to justify their position. Anyway, why does it take INEC over One and half year to say that NEC was not properly constituted? Was it not there when the election was conducted?, “ he querried.

    The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) is thorn apart by factions. And except this is resolved within reasonable time, analysts believ it could undermine its chances in future elections.

    Former governor of Kaduna State and the Chairman of Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Alhaji Balabe Musa, said leadership crisis in these parties is pervasive because of self interest. He noted that the leaders of the political parties have not looked beyond personal aggrandisement.

    “Let me say the formation APC is just one step now. They are now moving to the harder part which must also entail party discipline. We must learn from the previous political parties like PPA, PPP and SDP.”

    “Some of these political parties like SDP under Chief Tony Anenih could not muster sufficient courage to stand by Chief M.K.O Abiola who won the 1993 presidential election. He was not declared winner and was killed in the process. It was expected that the leadership of the party should stand by him but that was not the case.”

    It is held by analysts that one of the ways to encourage internal democracy in political parties is to allow independent candidature. Political observers noted that if independent candidate s are allowed to contest elections, some individuals who do not believe in the ideologies of the existing parties, would have the chance to serve the country.

    But Professor Abubabar Momoh who teaches Political Science at the Lagos State University (LASU) in his view explained that the system would be hijacked by money bags which will make the exercise a jamboree.

    “All the parties we have now have the same ideological stand. They are not fundamentally different. The same people are moving from one party to another emerging parties and all they are interested in is just to have power”. and not that they have some fundamental principles or ideas they want to put forward.”

  • Don says sports thrives better under democracy

    Don says sports thrives better under democracy

    Francis Akinremi, Chairman, Academic Staff Union of National Institute for Sports (NISports) said on Tuesday that sport was thriving better under the democratic dispensation than during the military era.

    Akinremi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that sports had developed in terms of better planning and coordination since the return of democratic governance. He stressed that democracy was flexible as it created increased job opportunities and political appointments for ex-sports internationals.

    “Presently we can say that sports is improving gradually, either in the area of planning and in the area of coordination but the major problem is just the administration per say in terms of implementation of policies. Military era is quite different from political era; when you talk in terms of military era they are using decree but this time around they are using Constitution.

    “The lines of Constitution are being interpreted by the judiciary. So, to me, presently we can say that sports has improved drastically because the awareness has been created. You can see that a lot of people are getting opportunities, jobs through politics. Maybe at one time you have played for Nigeria you can be appointed as a coach or have a position in your society to be the chairman of local government”.

    He urged government to focus on more of developing sports from the grassroots as it was crucial to the country’s future. He said the country had the needed manpower to excel in sports, stressing that the country possessed the right system and finance to stand among the best.