June 12: Remodelling Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy

AS the country marks Democracy Day, most Nigerians are trapped in a cheerless, miserable existence. This contrasts sharply with the promise of “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” penned 246 years ago by Americans declaring the birth of their independent nation anchored on democracy. For the majority, 23 years of civil rule, and the four years after June 12 was recognised in honour of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Moshood Abiola but annulled by the military junta, happiness and prosperity are elusive. Nigerians must take back their country from the ravenous actors ruining their present and their future to realise the benefits of liberty and create a better society.

On all counts, the liberating benefits of democracy remain illusory. Misery is pervasive. The affluence of a few comes at the expense of the majority. The number of poor in 2018 that vaulted the country above India to become the world’s poverty capital has risen from 86.9 million to 93.9 million. Unemployment is rife, with 33.3 percent jobless, many with an income barely survive and the good things of life, even the basics, elude millions.

Terrorists, armed robbers, bandits, rapists, thugs, and street gangs have rendered everywhere unsafe. Death and violent assault stalk the people at home, on the road, the farm, and market; dealt by terrorists, kidnappers, fanatics killing in the name of religion and street gangs. Churches and mosques are fair game for the marauders.

Not even schools are safe. Kidnappers are constantly on the prowl to torment, abduct children and youths. Mass kidnapping of schoolgirls has brought the country into odium and earned its mushrooming terrorist groups top ranking among the world’s deadliest terror outfits.

The economy is in ruins, despite three periods of bumper oil revenues; infrastructure is miserable. Ranked the 11th most wretched place on earth to live in, having the highest out-of-school population in the world and scored low on every human development index, Nigeria’s democracy is nightmarish. It is the world’s 12th most fragile state, perched precariously at the edge of state failure.

Leadership is awful, and the politicians mismanage everything: the country’s diversity, its economy, infrastructure, and institutions. Public funds are looted brazenly. Elections are often shambolic, and voter turnout averages less than 30 percent. Corruption is pervasive to the point that 40 percent of all procurement funds are stolen, reckons the US Department of Commerce. It contributes the largest chunk of illegal financial outflows from Africa, averaging $18 billion annually.

Nigeria has arrived at a dangerous junction. Democracy has not closed the fault lines in the wobbly federation: on the contrary, the differences have widened to unbridgeable chasms. Mutual hostility has reached fever pitch along ethnic, sectional, and religious lines. Only the politicians are united in their collaborative monopolisation of power and resources.

A significant number of Nigerians want out of the union. Majority demand a restructuring of the country into a true federation to replace the current unitary constitution that stifles growth and entrenches poverty. Some others and the self-determination groups insist that restructuring, not elections, should be the country’s immediate priority. Separatist groups have vowed to disrupt the 2023 elections.

Some positives include greater freedom of expression,despite oppressive officials, privatisation of over 154 enterprises and regular, though flawed elections. The liberalisation of private higher educational institutions has been marred by a near total breakdown of the public education sector where universities are shut down half of the time.

But the union can still be saved. The politicians have failed and pauperised the majority. It is both the right and the responsibility of the people to take back their country and create a just, equitable and prosperous democracy.

The starting point is to understand the value, benefits, and nature of democracy. No system is perfect, but democracy offers the best-known form of governance that promotes inclusion, choice, and sustainable development. Democracy confers ultimate sovereignty on the people through their freely elected representatives. The utopian vision of a society run by a “government of the people, by the people and for the people” voiced by Abraham Lincoln summarises this. Thomas Jefferson, who penned the American Declaration of Independence, also emphasised the right of the people to change a government or system they find unsatisfactory. Nigerians must make these choices today or surrender to misery, exclusion and inevitably, state failure. Democracy is failing in the country for several reasons.

First, the country is built on fraud. A natural federation of over 250 ethnic nationalities with different worldviews, culture, and aspirations, it is inanely run like a unitary state, with its 36 states reduced to beggarly appendages of an all-powerful centre. The 1999 Constitution perpetuates the fraud by opening with the blatant lie: “We the people….” It was crafted in secret by a departing military junta bent on maintaining the lopsided federation.

Next, those who assumed leadership positions are not democrats. Yes, they mouth slogans, but by their actions, they neither understand nor believe in democracy. Nigeria has been attempting to run a democracy without democrats! Political parties lack ideology or internal democracy but are mere vehicles to win office and the actors switch platforms like clothing. They are the pliant fiefdoms of godfathers instead of associations of equals. Elections are full-scale warfare, marred by violence, killings, and rigging. The electoral process is transactional and monetised. This drives away decent men and women from politics, leaving the field, as a commentator said, for “the worst of us to rule the best of us.”

Third, the people are the centre of democracy; its uniqueness lies in participation and inclusion. But Nigerians have abandoned governance to a rapacious, unprincipled political class. Unlike other democracies where it is the concerns of the people that shape policies and actions, Nigeria’s leaders appropriate institutions for the benefit of themselves, their families and allies, sects, and ethnic kin. By registering and voting, compelling town hall meetings, petitions, and consultations with officials at every level, the people should influence policies for the benefit of all.

Fourth, the people must demand and work for the real benefits of democracy. What the cynical politicians call “dividends of democracy” are false. Their hollow claims of building roads, clinics, bridges or dashing out government money as dividends are misplaced.

Every form of government, from absolute monarchy to single party dictatorship or military dictatorship, provides infrastructure and basic services. Indeed, the economic miracles in two of the storied Asian Tigers–South Korea and Taiwan—were engineered under military dictatorships. A third, Singapore, was driven by an authoritarian leader. China’s economic transformation is driven by a single party Communist dictatorship.

A study by the Australian government identified four key ideals/goals of democracy: an active and engaged citizenry; an inclusive and equitable society; free and franchised elections, and supremacy of the rule of law. Expert opinion collated by UNIFROG also summarised four key benefits of democracy as: protecting the interest of citizens; promoting equality; preventing abuse of power; and creating stability. On all eight counts, failure is manifest in Nigeria.

These benefits/goals should be the expectations of Nigerians from democracy, not the dishonest claims of “dividends of democracy” chimed by the politicians.

For clarity: while infrastructure and development are not necessarily the immediate evidence of democratic governance, it is democracy that provides sustainable development, prosperity, and liberty in the long run. This is because democracy is built around and nurtured by strong institutions; autocracy is anchored on individuals. Ultimately, democracy delivers prosperity, stability, and better human development indices sustainably, says the United Nations. The most developed and most stable countries ranked by the World Population Review are also mature, longstanding democracies.

Nigeria’s leaders are leading the country to perdition. It is time for Nigerians to take back their destiny. As the Council of Europe asserted, “Citizens’ interests and needs should be the focus of every political decision-making process at all governance levels. It is the heart of democracy that citizens’ concerns are the basis for change.”

Genuine change comes by popular participation. Across the country, there is a consensus for restructuring, state policing, fiscal federalism, and resource control. Nigerians desperately pine for good governance and accountability.

Democracy is not a silver bullet achieved by the mere presence of a constitution; it is driven, sustained, and nurtured by an active citizenry. Protests, sit-ins, rallies, and recalls are features of established democracies. Where institutions falter or politicians abridge rights or break the norms of decency, the people have the right to act. South Korean protesters forced out President Park Gyeun-hye over a corruption scandal in 2017; Romanian protesters 2017 to 2019 forced the government to backtrack on legislation seeking to protect corrupt officials.

From community level to local government level, state and federal, Nigerians should adopt an activist participatory posture. Where infrastructure is poor, crumbling, or absent, community leaders and youths should through petitions, peaceful gatherings, and marches, compel councillors, LG chairmen, state, and federal legislators to do their duty. Every eligible adult should obtain a voter card and exercise their mandate to stop the rampant imposition of incompetent stooges by godfathers.

Civil society organisations that performed excellently fighting for rights under the military should wake up and lead. Trade unions, students and the intelligentsia, workers and market women were the heroes of the independence and the anti-military dictatorship movements. Today’s generation should recover that groove.

The most betrayed segment of the population is the youth. The #EndSARS protests demonstrated the power of a determined, articulate, and disciplined activist citizenry. The youth should not give up; they should seize the initiative. The youth of South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong never gave up despite the brutality of the ruling juntas.

Nigerians should from today resolve and begin to organise to repossess their rights and sovereignty by all lawful means. Continued complacency could spell even greater misery and state failure in the years ahead.