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Nigeria: What Happened to Our Democracy? By Zents Kunle Sowunmi When Doctor Reuben Abati of Guardian news media wrote of recent on the refusal of President Barak Obama of United States of America to make Nigeria one of his first leg visit to Africa and his romantic words on democracy on people of Ghana, Abati wrote to imagine what it would look like if Mr. Obama had visited Nigeria and would have been shaking the hands of men and women that had received bribes, killed the people of Niger Delta and in fact the hands of people that continue to put over 120 million people in darkness and still plan to force the same type of leadership in the next election by asking the current sick president to seek second term. The above was the summary of Dr. Abati on President Obama which to this writer is even short of the whole result on how to practice democracy. Nigeria constitution is not only faulty it helps to perpetrate failures and illegitimacy on the populace, the present constitution of the Federal REPUBLIC OF Nigeria can not be separated from forces that are keeping Nigeria from development as will be explained below. Firstly, Nigeria is perhaps the only country on earth that has in its constitution the council of ex leaders to advise or reject the action of a sitting president. In the council are the negative forces since independence and like a vomit the council contained all the ex military leaders that were forces against democracy with soiled hands on blood of innocent Nigerians. Until a sitting president is freed from these forces nothing concrete on accountability can ever be seen to be done. Secondly, Nigeria is the only country with a sick President with a glaring look of his sickness and still pretend everything is okay when it is not and to his conscience he could not quit office for the sake of million of people but choose to remain in office because of his ego and political class he represent not because his political agenda is progressing the country. A good and forward looking country would have forced such leadership to quit office for his deputy to assume office, but the interest of the ethnic he represent is stronger than the love or hopes of the entire nation which confirms that Nigeria is still a mere geographical expression several decades after Pa Awolowo defined the country as such. Thirdly, Nigeria is perhaps one of last nations to accept that Democracy does not embrace the local and traditional leaders with their funny looking garment like masquerades parading themselves as Obas, Emirs or Obis in 21st century without any meaningful contributions to national growth except to ally with any sitting government to further perpetrate corruption and slow down development of the country, these groups of leaders represent relics of the past and must be replaced with Mayors in every City for Nigeria to move forward. Fourthly, Nigeria with a faulty constitution has failed to realize that every executive and legislative arms of government must be equipped with police forces to carry out laws and orders, but such is not the case in terms of State and local government with executive and legislature with no police force to implement or see to the effectiveness of any law that emanated from the government. The forces keeping Nigeria behind would easily point to reasons why each state or local government or city should never be allowed to have police but would turn blind eye to the goodness of having state and city police. State and city government without it own police force will not be able to generate revenue adequately or protect it people from negative forces. Complete decentralization of the police with only EFCC at federal level and the rest to the state and City police would be an ideal situation but to Nigerians that love power it will be difficult to amend the demonic constitution forced on the people. Further more, Nigeria is one of the countries paying billions of Naira to its legislative arms of government but could only get four laws enacted from such chambers for a whole year, in a civilized nation it is a ground to dissolve such a parliament for non performance. A nation with such lazy legislature can never move beyond mediocre level, when in fact laws that are relevant are never brought up for debate, laws like social security, medical aids, freedom of information law that was killed by the last illiterate president in action and his inability to see beyond the tip of his nose that Nigeria is greater than personal interest. At the end of the century, Nigerians would be asked what happened to our democracy, why has Ghana a nation with less than 25 million taken a lead over Nigeria in West Africa. if Ghana is able to manage its new oil money better than Nigeria it will further indicate that size or population does not matter but the an egalitarian society which Kwame Nkrumah planned for Ghana, and which Rawlings helped to removed the negative forces from office and in life but which Nigeria continue to harbor in its constitution as council of former leaders and continue firm belief in keeping funny looking traditional leaders and suppressing the hopes and demand of millions through complete darkness of economy and darkness of mind in search of our own boat to 21st century. Finally, the questions to ask are very simple, who is in charge of Nigeria? Demons or Angel? Negative forces or progressive forces? Why is it so difficult for us to have a good government like Ghana? Are we too large in population and too short in reasoning? Or just don’t understand that governance is more than personal ego or tribal affiliations because in the end it will be more than just stealing millions and building mansions in a society that will always be threatened by robbers.
Zents Kunle Sowunmi (is the Author of a new book “Before the Journey became Home”) New York, USA
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