Nigeria Still Searches For Democracy

“The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of
holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are
essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides the
natural environment for the protection and effective realization of
human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights .” –UN.
Nigeria does not have a democracy. There is politics in Nigeria, in fact
too much of it, but no democracy. Having civilian rulers does not
make a democracy. And unlike the USA, where as Hilary Clinton said-
in-Nigeria, “our democracy is yet evolving,” Nigeria does not yet have
a democracy, so nothing is evolving.
Democracy is about the provision of, and protection of Human Rights.
It is not simply a process of putting papers in ballot boxes. The
conditions to test; questions to ask ourselves are: Are we lead or
ruled? Are any of those who rule us the people we would really choose
with our eyes open? Do those who rule us represent us and provide us
our basic rights? Do they lead us to where we need be, or do they
only rule over us for their gains? Are we able to remove them when
they fail?
And then, can we honestly say that the 80 million rural dwellers are
represented, know candidates and vote for candidates to lead them in
our current system, or these villagers do not count in the selection
but suffer the most from its consequences; these rural dwellers who
account for 80% of our 100 million destitute population. These
questions are essential conditions democracy fulfils; do we have
them?
Choosing leadership is not the single reason why democracy is
advocated and why nations adopt it. Getting rid of leaderships is the
difference, beauty, essence and unique advantage of democracy. That
is the point of democracy. If a so-called ‘juvenile’ democracy does
not yet have the ‘eviction’ capacity, it is not a democracy. Democracy
is a very expensive system. The idea of applying this method is not
because you for one second think the candidate you are choosing is a
great person.
Does this mean we hate our sons and daughters who sign-up with
the military? Or we think these disciplined family members are less of
people and do not have what it takes to lead a nation? The ability to
terminate the leadership is as important as the provision of selection.
And we must actively have both; having only the one is as good as
having none.
In biology of the cell, when a cell fails to pass a ‘check-point,’ the cell
automatically tries to repair the problem, and when it is unable, the
cell kills itself in a process called Apoptosis. This protects cells from
becoming cancerous. In our traditional systems, we used to apply
such systems as giving the king the empty calabash or gift of
parrot’s eggs, which tells him he has been disapproved of and must
take his own life.
Good enough people are plentiful and we actually usually end up with
the worst of us with democratic choice. The politician candidates we
choose, even if ‘good’ now, we do know they can change to bad
people too, and may already be bad people in sheep’s clothing. But
we go through that arduous, money wasting, ethnic-fracturing,
nation-wrecking, lengthy process of campaigns, political jamborees,
pauses in governance, political mismanagement and all other pains of
democratic processes, simply because democracy should provide us
certain conditions. These conditions are the primary reasons and
requisites of democracy.
The first is the perceived ability abinitio to have a choice of
candidates that all have a real chance of actually coming into power.
Democracy is all about choice. One and even two party systems limit
and cancel any reality of choice. A malicious cabal chooses in
primaries and the nation is forced to accept and vote-in that one
choice or tops, two choices in two party systems. Abolishing parties
and at least, prohibiting or capping party expenses which could be by
government equal funding of all campaigns, with no private financing
allowed, can resolve these, embezzlement and many other campaign
financing related issues.
The second condition for a true democracy is the ability to vote out
candidates at their term, without conversation of extension of term or
threat of terror if they lose the next round. We do not have this.
The third is the ability and likelihood of impeachment of candidates
who fail to execute their obligations, within terms. After all, nature
usually has its way of ridding us of military dictatorships, and they
are usually replaced in our particular experience in about 8 years,
making them not much different in terms of lengthy terms, than
civilian regimes. Our rules should be firm and protected.
When people are unable to select their candidates but are only
imposed candidates, and when only certain party-elite blocks'
imposed candidates have the ability to win, and when candidates
cannot be voted out until two terms are completed and/or terms are
extended, and then finally when impeachment for failure within term
are unavailable, then we have a disguised dictatorship.
On Tuesday the 3rd of December, 2013, the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on the Judiciary met to discuss the
impeachment of President Barack Obama. The hearing was titled “The
President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the
Laws.” {Washington Post}
Republican senators felt Obama had not faithfully executed the laws
of the land and so they considered impeachment. Ex-US President Bill
Clinton was impeached for “laughable” reasons.
The risk and reality of impeachment is as vital to democracy as is the
voting process. Leaders merit democracy’s bounty when they are
voted in power, and the masses reap its fruit when the leaders know
they can and will be impeached when they lie, steal, or in any way fail
in their duty to execute the law.
The Nigerian system does not have this key aspect of democracy and
as such it is not a democracy. The entire legislature is bribed to
abandon their obligation to protect the right of the masses for a
check on government.
But to make our non-democracy even more apparent, consider the
recurrent dimension of our system with the proposal of term
elongations when candidates either realize their term is set to expire
or they realize they cannot win again.
The CNPP party said those who suggested a term elongation deserved
investigation and repudiation. They were spot-on. Nigerians elected
leaders based on 4 year term expiration. That was the deal, the
package. To waste time, money and muddy the national intelligence
by proposing term elongations is frankly criminal.
Will there be a referendum? Are there term truncations? How about
the more suggestion to consider a term reduction to 3 years to more
favorably resolve the quagmire that this political block has put the
nation into?
As it stands, the Nigeria is begging for a democracy. One had to just
take a look at the recent Anambra elections to know it was and will
continue to waste its time as the leadership continues to take
advantage of and promote our dictatorial system.
The pictures of those women throwing themselves on and rolling on
the ground were pathetic but clearly pretentious. Overall they
demonstrated the fact that the system in place did not serve the
people and abused the people.
Secondly, in the Anambra election, there were over a million invalid
votes, the second largest vote counted. Ballot sheets where voters
filled out nonsense. With the general interested populace not being
able to vote, this democracy is no democracy as far as people’s
choice goes.
There was open and widespread distribution of bribes to buy voters.
Indomie noodles boxes (not scholarships) were one such cheap
buyoff.
And the candidate party disputes, the widely reported fraud, these
things will never go away and as long as they exist, we end up with
imposed rulers and not leaders we sort of chose.
In satisfaction of my ideals for my human rights, that I may deem I
have a democracy, the minimum I would require is for the
administration to establish an enlightened committee to sit down and
trash our leadership selection process from scratch. So long as we
continue with this useless selection program and are denied
expulsions for failure, my rights are not protected and I am not under
a democracy.
Our return to a less tribal and ethnic provocative and less societal
rendering parliamentary system of leadership selection is a proposed
tactic many have presented that needs to be tabled. When 40 million
people go to ballots all around the nation to vote for candidates they
know next to nothing of, except a few posters here and there and as
we know, having received some peanuts in enticement during
campaigns, what results is wars, and the election of the most
unworthy. With a parliamentary system, people are restricted to
choosing only their local representatives who they have a better
chance of actually knowing and holding to account, and it is these
reps that select from among them the President. This reduces cost
and eliminates volatile complaint and social-media curses being
thrown at the top.
We should consider reducing usage of ballots which simply do not
work for us. Let us redesign from our objective—representation. The
idea is to get representatives and in this, this system fails us. Our
market places have representative leaders we are comfortable with.
Our Universities have representative leaders we trust, our mechanic
unions have leaders we are comfortable with. Our religious
organizations select leaders based on skill, rather easily. And all these
are chosen inexpensively without bloodshed or precipitating hatred.
These same social group leaders can be our representatives? This can
be considered to stave off this billion dollar wasteful system that
yields nothing.
It is time we have a democracy in Nigeria.