Fifteen Years of Democracy

Some of the credit for this achievement must go to the military institution. It has since learnt the virtues of patience, of concentrating on its professional duties of defending the country and of supporting civil authorities in the maintenance of law and order. The international situation has also been a factor in this relative stability […]

Some of the credit for this achievement must go to the military institution. It has since learnt the virtues of patience, of concentrating on its professional duties of defending the country and of supporting civil authorities in the maintenance of law and order. The international situation has also been a factor in this relative stability because non-elected governments find it tough going among the comity of nations these days.
In a broadcast to mark the occasion, President Goodluck Jonathan heaped praises on Nigeria’s democracy which he described as robust. His assessment was not shared by this country’s senators. During a debate last Wednesday, senators complained that the National Assembly is becoming increasingly irrelevant. They said many motions and resolutions passed by them are regarded by the Executive to be merely advisory while heaps of reports churned out by legislative committees are not implemented. They also said most laws emanate from the Executive because private member’s bills that are passed into law are not assented to by the president.
This assessment by the legislators is negative but that of the general populace is even more pessimistic than that. In the early days of this Republic, an assessment criterion called “delivering the dividends of democracy” was invented by politicians and the news media. What constitutes democracy dividend was never well defined. While some spoke of it as building infrastructure and social services, others spoke of it as intangibles such as respect for the rule of law, upholding human rights and civil liberties, being accountable to the electorate, allowing people’s votes to count in elections etc.
Whether democracy dividend is defined by the first or the second of these definitions, by the assessment of most Nigerians it has so far failed by a wide margin to meet the expectations of citizens. There is almost as much impunity in public life today as there was during the military era. Citizens are still detained or even killed with impunity. Governments show scant regard for citizens’ rights or opinions when passing laws that affect their lives. An example is the recent ban of commercial motorcycles in Kaduna State, which was rammed through despite widespread protests by the people. Yet another example of official impunity was last week’s attack on the #Bring Back Our Girls protesters in Abuja by members of the government-backed #Release Our Girls group.
Then there is corruption which is the biggest stumbling block to the realisation of this country’s developmental aspirations. Public officers at all levels, elected as well as appointed ones, brazenly abuse their offices, award contracts to themselves and acquire stupendous riches. This happens even while social services fail all around, schools and hospitals are not equipped and many infrastructure projects are started and abandoned. No mercy is shown to weak groups such as pensioners who go unpaid for years while programs aimed at ameliorating poverty often become conduit pipes for official theft.
Related to this problem is the general lack of credibility of elections in Nigeria. Politicians shamelessly steal the vote and subvert the will of the voters. Even those politicians who get the voters to vote for them often do so by corrupt inducement. The courts do not help matters; election tribunals are very costly affairs often riddled with corruption. Political parties that are supposed to be the legal midwives of elections in Nigeria have too many problems of their own to perform this role effectively. All of them have no ideological direction, no common programs and no internal democracy. They operate merely as agencies for vote bribery and election manipulation, hence the endless crises bedevilling most of them. As such, politicians criss-cross from one party to another seeking nomination to stand for elections. Once they fail to get these, they shamelessly move on to another party.
While democratic practice at the centre in Nigeria is hardly exemplary, it is even weaker at the state level and weakest at the local government level. While the National Assembly does some feeble attempts to check and balance the Executive, the state houses of assembly are mostly rubber stamps to the state governors. On the other hand the local governments are mostly emasculated by state governments and their funds are seized under the cover of “state-local government joint accounts.” The 1999 Constitution’s mandate that local government councils must be democratically elected is mostly observed in the breach. For example, it was only last year that Anambra State held its first local government polls since 1999. Then also, no one takes elections conducted by State Independent Electoral Commissions [SIECs] seriously. Wherever they hold, the local ruling party wins every single seat available, as in Kano State recently.
Right now, the democratic order and in fact the very survival and stability of Nigeria are threatened by the Boko Haram sect which has waged a murderous insurgency since 2010. Boko Haram presents a severe test to the durability and effectiveness of democratic institutions. Right now they are failing badly with the war being poorly conducted. Instead of healthy cooperation, what Nigerians see are political squabbles between different tiers of government and even between different wings of the Federal Government.
We must conclude with a note of warning that the most important task of government, democratic or non-democratic, is to protect citizens’ lives and property. Any government that fails to do that will lose credibility in the eyes of citizens and no appeal to democracy ideals will redeem it in the eyes of citizens. That said, we wish Nigerians many more anniversaries of democratic rule.