American President Abraham Lincoln tried to simplify democracy as the “Government of the people, by the people and for the people.” With this, he meant that rather than have (what medieval Europe described as) divine, chosen kings, citizens chose their rulers from among themselves.
But what seems to be happening in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic is the government of a close-knit political elite, anointed by their ilk, to serve the interests of the political elite who also weaponise poverty to keep the masses permanently outside the corridors of power.
But what seems to be happening in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic is the government of a close-knit political elite, anointed by their ilk, to serve the interests of the political elite who also weaponise poverty to keep the masses permanently outside the corridors of power.
However, Nigerian citizens, who appear to be hapless and clueless about governance for the most part, need not accept the raw hand dealt them by the mostly reactionary elite who use political power to advance only their own interests.
The people can make their voices heard, and their votes count in this dreadful democracy that has woefully failed to deliver the proverbial “dividends of democracy” that were promised after the media and the civil society joined the politicians opposed to military rule to fight to return Nigeria to a democratic dispensation.
The various estates─the media, civil society organisations, professional associations, the trade groups of the Organised Private Sector, financial donors to political parties, even teachers’ associations, student unions, traditional rulers and plebeians— of the Nigerian realm should take a principled stand to challenge the rapacious political class.
The media, that is empowered by the Constitution to hold the government accountable to the people, should find its voice and discharge its constitutional responsibility by arming itself with knowledge and truth to goad state actors into charting the appropriate path for social equity, political emancipation and economic development.
But for the media to effectively play its part in the political scheme of things, there is a need for a cadre of media entrepreneurs with the savvy to run successful and profitable media enterprises that will pay good remuneration to journalists, finance investigative reports and deliver robust journalism to aid Nigeria’s democratic journey.
Now is the time for the civil society organisations to regroup to join the media with advocacy, protests and moral interventions, educate the citizens on their roles in a democracy and organise them into vocal cadres that can stand up and demand the statutory deliverables from elected and appointed state actors.
This is where Community Development Associations also come in. They should apply pressure on members of the political class among their numbers by clearly telling them the expectations and needs of their communities.
CDAs should be interested in how those seeking elective offices among their members join political parties, emerge as aspirants and candidates and manifestos they present. They should closely monitor the performances of these members in elective and appointive positions.
Hitherto vocal professional groups, like the Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigerian Medical Associations, and the usually passive others, like the Nigerian Society of Engineers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, should use their default ethical culture to demand excellence from their members who hold public offices.
The Nigerian Union of Teachers, the Academic Staff Union of Nigeria) Universities and the proscribed National Union of Nigerian Students should stop whining and focus on how Nigeria’s varied problems can be resolved in the overall interest of Nigerians.
It is an encouraging, if also feeble, act that members of the Oyo State chapter of NUT have embarked on three days of fasting to pray for “safe, speedy and unconditional release of (their) dear colleagues held in captivity”, by armed kidnappers in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Ethnic associations, like Afenifere, Ohaneze Ndigbo, Arewa Consultative Forum, Ijaw National Congress and Urhobo Progressive Union, and regional pressure groups, like Pan Niger Delta Forum and Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, should stop fighting shy and openly seek to advance the interests of their peoples.
But they must, however, consult with each other to present a common front while engaging the wily political class, who must be made to understand that there is no place to hide, and that they must run the polity in the interest of all Nigerians, regardless of ethnicity, religion and region.
Religious leaders─pastors, imams and acolytes of alternative religions─need to exert moral pressure on members of the political class that belong to their congregations. They must minister truth, integrity and compassion and charge the politicians to consistently deliver good governance to the people.
Traditional rulers, who are told that they have no constitutional role to play in Nigeria’s politics, are corralled into toadying to the government through the effete talk-shop National Association of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria.
Members of the various trade groups of Nigeria’s Organised Private Sector that have suffered so much from the inappropriate social and economic policies of the usually selfish and incompetent political class should come up with suggestions that can make them perform much better within the Nigerian economic environment.
They should be conducting studies and telling the federal, state and local governments the infrastructure, like electricity, waterworks, roads, railway lines and petroleum refineries, that they need to achieve more profitability, provide employment, pay more taxes and discharge their civic social responsibilities.
Before accepting the government’s invitation to come and invest in Nigeria, foreign direct investors should be firm in providing a wish list of items, like infrastructure, regulations, legal frameworks and security architecture, that the government must put in place to attract them.
Multinationals shouldn’t make it easy for irresponsible governments to lure them into Nigeria with the sweet nothings about Nigeria being a country of youths, vast natural resources and a huge market where practically anything can be traded profitably.
Even the mythical “Man on the street”, that Americans call John Doe should be involved in the crusade for better governance by rejecting the bag of rice and the measly N5,000 that transactional political elites offer them during elections.
The point being made in all this is that all stakeholders in Nigeria, including foreign investors, cannot fold their hands in resignation and act as if they are victims of an invincible leviathan that can neither be controlled nor contained.
Every group of Nigerians should exercise their constitutional rights by boldly expressing their idea of the way the country should be run in the interest of all. Politicians should not begin to feel that they are superior to fellow Nigerians in the manner of the pigs in George Orwell’s fairy tale “Animal Farm”.
