Ideas and debates for good governance in Africa.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Politicians, INEC, Democracy and the Rest of us
Democracy as a system never changes, but politicians who are responsible for nurturing it do change and in fact try to twist it to suit their interest. Recently, there were calls from patriotic Nigerians and Labour organisations in the country for the President to sack Professor Maurice Iwu, the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission. INEC as an institution is one of the fundamental pillars of our democracy, others being the Police, Media and Civil Society Organisations. The institutions of democracy are very fragile institutions because they take a long time to build-up; in our case this is evident on the way we find ourselves under democracy. These institutions can collapse at any time and more quickly, not least through violence. Their collapse will be as result of de-democratisation through small but conscious adjustments of important details of the structures. Without anyone really wanting it to happen, the institutions of democracy can thus lose their efficacy and their norms. This can take place by critical development being neglected or by political representatives consciously or recklessly misusing the confidence of citizens.
Without mincing words one can confidently say that the institutions of democracy in Nigeria from 1999 to date have been systematically destroyed and gradually Nigerians are loosing faith in the system. No system, in all man made systems guarantees freedom like democracy. It is a very appealing system, because is a system founded on a conviction that all people are of equal value. In contrast to every other idea about the structure of society, democracy accepts and proceeds on the basis that we are different and should be allowed to be so. We should not need to be adjusted. It guarantees citizen participation in governance - the freedom to select leaders of your choice; it protects the interest of the week and checks the excesses of the strong. Its guiding principle is constitution, which spelt out how each and everyone should conduct himself.
Unfortunately opposite is the case in Nigeria, however in many instances we should not blame Maurice Iwu alone or the INEC for all what we have been seeing in most of our elections. Maurice Iwu is also a Nigerian and the INEC is manned by Nigerians who cannot act differently from the rest of us. Today, INEC is criticised almost by every Nigerian (except, may be by people who benefitted from its rigging and manipulation of election results) because it is through it that one of the tenets of democracy is bastardized i.e. the power of citizens to control their own destiny and be afforded an opportunity to develop skills to resolve their conflicts together with others in a democratic spirit. INEC, security agencies and greedy politicians combined, have in 2003 and 2007 denied Nigerians the opportunity to choose leaders of their choice.
The expectation of Nigerians in 1999 after long period of military rule was democratic dividends. They expected more economic opportunities and better governance but 9 or 10 years after, what we see from top to bottom is a bloody battle by politicians, each trying to out-do his opponent in a winner-take-all system in which the voters are all but unnecessary. These same people, the politicians who got the opportunity to rig themselves into power are killing their own people by stealing the money meant for health care, for schools, for clean water, for everything which ideally democracy come with.
The hope of counting Nigeria as one of the growing family of democratic nations in Africa soon dashed away. It is not surprising then to hear some analysts started thinking of whether our politicians are matured enough to sustain our democracy. After riding a rough road in which many Nigerians lost their lives, while some went for exile, the expectation was that our politicians have learnt a lesson and cannot allow or give chance to any power hungry despot to have his way. But the frivolities exhibited by our politicians through bad governance, open looting of public treasury, and election rigging is a clear indication that our politicians have not learnt anything.
Some writers are of the opinion that Nigeria’s case is as a result of long military rule which the country suffers. But is that absolutely correct? Because the country spent 15 years under military rule and now we have entered our tenth year of democracy. Ten years is enough for us to de-militarise our political culture and establish in its place a true democracy, and it does not appear there is any end in sight to garrison form of politics (apologies to Ahmadu Ali), if we consider the behaviour of our politicians. For how long can we continue to blame our democratic culture on prolong military rule when our politicians who are the custodians of democratic culture take pleasure in abusing its tenets?
The future and entire development of our democracy is disappointing and very annoying considering the energy and time devoted to fighting the military in the 1980s and 90s. Nigeria's democracy has been a resounding failure; investigations upon investigations, court cases against public servants and political office holders, who shamelessly stripped their states treasuries naked, that has led to widespread neglect and disillusionment. The ruling party is not the only culprit here; the opposition are also guilty of the same offence. They do all sort of things the ruling party is accused of, they intimidate their opponents, rig local government elections and use incumbency to perpetuate themselves on power.
Therefore, Professor Maurice Iwu is not the problem of Nigeria’s democracy, even if he is removed today, what we saw in 2007 elections will repeat itself in 2011 because the same people that bullied themselves to power in 2007 are still alive and are ready to do worse because Nigerians are gullible, they can easily be deceived by sweet talks from deceptive politicians who come with catch phrases like electoral review, constitutional review and agendas that are never implemented. The elites, who are supposed to rescue the country from these people are either afraid to talk or connived with them. We wait and see, pray and hope, because the conviction of Nigerians is that the country cannot continue like this and surely these people will pay for what they did to Nigeria and the Nigerian people.
Kabiru Danladi,
Lawanti Village, KM25,
Along Gombe-Bauchi Road,
Akko LGA Gombe State,
Nigeria.
kblondon2003@yahoo.com
08054546764,08035150369

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