NIGERIA AND DILEMMA OF HER DEMOCRACY

Except for the holiday declared by the Federal Government to commemorate the nation’s democracy day, no sufficient impacts of democracy had been felt by people. Nigerians are not really happy. Instead of people being happy, discontent and disaffection are visible everywhere due to the observed dysfuctionality in the various sectors of the economy and due to glaring evidence of poor governance in most states of the federation.

Three years into the Buhari’s administration, people have reasons to groan. There is widespread poverty every where. Though, the statistics released by the government made us to believe that the economic growth is back and consolidating. Yet, there are clear indications that people are suffering seriously.

The unfortunate reality is that the claim by the government that inflation has fallen for the fifteenth (15) consecutive months from 18.7 percent in January 2017 to 12.5 percent as of April 2018 had not really had direct positive impacts on the citizens and purchasing power of Nigeria’s currency.

The story of our nation is that of a country practising democracy without genuine democrats. Across the country, we have governors without democratic credentials. These greedy and selfish governors are still owing workers despite the fact that Buhari’s admistration had extended more than 1.9 trillion naira to State governments to enable them meet their salary and pension obligations especially in the face of dwindling oil revenues over the last two years.

It is disheartening that the federal government had not succeeded in suppressing the menace of Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen completely despite the military campaign and international support so far mobilized. However, the commitment of the present government to halt the menace cannot be underestimated.

In terms of education financing, the government has not in my view scored a pass mark. When one evaluates the quality of Nigeria’s education system, it is abysmally low. The prevailing situation across the country is that most institutions including public and private ones lack the quality personnel and facilities for effective teaching, research and community services. Worse still, factors of dissatisfies such as irregular payment of salaries and allowances of workers, arbitrary delay in giving promotion to deserving workers and lack of opportunity for training and development have made many of the Universities and Polytechnics staff to be unproductive and inefficient.

By measure of Nigeria performance in international relations, the efforts of President Muhammed Buhari in this respect are worthy of commendation particularly with bilateral agreements signed with China, United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Morocco, Switzerland and United Arab Emirate (UAE). Yet, the average Nigerians are still striving to feel the direct positive impacts of all these bilateral agreements.

One other cause of dilemma as the nation’s democracy grows is the issue of local government autonomy. In the present democracy, local governments are mere appendage of the states. It can no longer be regarded as a third tier of government. The Buhari’s administration will do the country good, if the local government can be made to be autonomous through constitutional and legislative processes.

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Despite the earlier pointed dilemmas, it will be unjust not to commend the present administration effort in fighting the war against corruption. The way the government has been handling it’s whistle blowing policy gives hope for a better future for the country. By extension, the fiscal reforms and plugging leackages in government finances are part of areas where Buhari’s admistration had succeeded.

Again, executive recklessness and excesses continue to jeopardise the practice of democracy in the country as observed through the conducts of most of the state governors. With the enthronment and sustainability of democratic norms, principles and institutions in our country , the good people of Nigeria ought to have began reaping the fruits of democracy. Also, the governors of states have become overlords such that most of them now control the state Assemblies of their respective states. It will be difficult for any state to experience good governance where governors would not allow the state assemblies perform their legislative functions without interference. Most of the states House of Assemblies are toothless bull dogs. The National Assembly that ought to offer a sort of solace are also operating as enemies of democracy. The current National Assembly are dominated by brigandages.

In the present order, most members of the National Assembly give preference to oversight functions at the detriment of primary legislative responsibilities. This is a country where legislators feel the only measure of their performance is through empowerment projects. Obviously, the so called empowerment programmes are nothing but ruse. Until when true democrats in terms of ideological inclination and practices are encouraged to venture into politics, our lamentation will continue. Except we also allow people with sound minds and ideologically inclined enjoy the opportunities to occupy elective positions, people will continue to groan and our democracy will remain in a state of dilemma.

 

Rahaman Onike
An author and public administrator,
writes from Oyo, Oyo State.