Political Education: The Panacea For An Enduring Democracy

By

Dr ‘Wole Akinwumi & Mr Omusa Baba Ohyoma, FCCA*

Policy Advisors, The Nigerian Project, UK

omusa@ohyoma.com

 

 

Nigeria’s democracy is evolving and would require all hands to be on the deck for us to fully garnish the dividends that flow from it.  Democracy as a concept is a means to an end and hence leans heavily on other peripheral issues for it to deliver and make meaningful impact in everyday life.  This is why it has to be handled with care whilst ensuring that none of its principal prerequisites is inordinately violated. 

 

Democracy cannot be bucked; as it has an invisible way of fighting back.  It is for this reason that democracy works well where it is allowed to fully root.  Similarly it falters where it is being patched! Democracy feeds on freedoms not ‘bolekaja’ political temperament.

 

For our country, we accept that our experience is embryonic. Thus, we expect that a mixture of crude, jocose and civil dispositions would abound; as different hands deep into the bowl of newfound ‘democratic’ experiment.   Nothing is wrong with these different hands.  Again, this is the beauty of the concept itself - the right of the individuals to be heard and the freedom to own opinions.  Democracy thrives on ideas not insults.  It thrives on innovations not hooliganism. It thrives on diplomacy and common sense not character assassination, brawl or bully. Why are we saying this?

 

Following the support of the Nigerian Project, UK to an IBB presidential ambition, some of our fellow countrymen descended heavily on the group’s view with slanderous name-calling – cocaine pusher, 419, economic refugees etc.  What such vehement insults denote is ignorance, frustration or naivety.  Their outburst showed a vivid lack of understanding and appreciation of the pillars upon which democratic structures are constructed.  Has not the group a right to associate and make choices?

 

One is almost misled to believe that our country has degenerated into a banana republic that repudiates freedom of association and expression of own political pathways. The gifts of democracy are myriad; and its space infinitely defined, as it were, by political affiliations, ideologies or even making a simple political statement.  All of these have a place in the heart of democracy.  No qualms whatsoever.  

 

What these guys are denoting in a way is, “unless the Nigerian Project UK declares for our candidate of choice, we would bastardise them”.  This is a very dangerous and wrong attitude to take in an emerging democracy.  People will have different views, they will make different choices and so be it.  The more the merrier.  Indeed, it is the lack of political pluralism, not the presence of it, which should give us sleepless night.  If by now no one shows interest in the 2007 elections, then there is a system error and something must be seriously wrong with our country.

 

The negative and abusive undertones of these critics are a testimony of the failure of Nigeria’s political class.  There is the failure to educate and inform the masses of Nigeria’s populace about what politics is and what it is not.  We then began to wonder whether, perhaps, this is one of the deliberate measures of under-education perpetuated to muzzle the masses and create a myopic view of politics.

 

At any rate, our views are that, one of the principal responsibilities of the political class in our country is to now embark on an accelerated political education process to address the many traces of political illiteracy that pervades our society.  Poverty of political education shows itself in intolerance, bribery, intimidation, election rigging and politics with bitterness.  Our people need to be schooled on the principles of tolerance and freedom to choose.  We need to learn how to live with views different from our own.  We cannot all sleep and put our heads in the same direction.  It was the late Alhaji Ibrahim Waziri who preached ‘politics without bitterness’.  We think, our countrymen and women need to practice this.  This is one of the ingredients of all enduring democracies around the world.  It is one of the virtues of politics in many advanced nations where politics deliver for the ordinary person in the street.

 

Declaration of political ambition is not a crime in any democracy.  Any persons of voting age and who satisfy the conditions set in prevailing constitution have the democratic right to vote and be voted into any offices of their choices.  In the event, no other citizen has the right to condemn anyone or a group of people for exercising this right.  Furthermore, the choice of association is an individual choice.  It is not done by coercion or insult.  The resort to bully tactics or aspersion casting simply runs counter to the tenets of democracy.  Moreover, the choice of who govern a people is in the hands of the electorates.  Here lies the power of democracy – suffrage is a leveller.  The poor and the rich, young and old, male and female, able and disable have equal voting right and use this to express a preference. 

 

The Nigerian Project UK has made its choice.  The group has the right to do this without its members being insulted or castigated for exercising a choice that is undeniable in ‘good’ democracies across the world.  Indeed, contrary to the views expressed by some of the critics in respect of the position of the Nigerian Project UK, members are seasoned professional men and women who have made their marks in the country of their abode and also have the love of their fatherland at heart. 

 

We do not believe an iota that British, French, German, American, Japanese, Chinese, Canadian and Russian citizens working in different parts of Nigeria would be labelled as economic refugees, cocaine pushers etc. simply by expressing opinions about political developments in their different countries. Or would anyone in his right mind portray Ngozi’s sojourn with the World Bank as economic refugee or a 419?

 

*Dr Wole Akinwumi (from Ekiti State) is a Senior Lecturer in International Economics, Finance & Statistics in East Anglia UK and Mr Omusa Ohyoma, FCCA (from Nasarawa State) is a Professional Accountant and a Financial Controller/Budget Co-ordinator & Development for a large London Government Authority.