RE-MODELLING DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA TO DELIVER.

“Every segment of our population and every individual have a right to expect from his
government a fair deal”
Harry S. Truman (1945)

The political history of Nigeria could easily be written as a running tale of struggles,
armed conflict and corruption tied to the inability of social groups and the leaders to
move beyond boundaries of religion and ethnicity. Flash points, religious, communal,
ethnic and resource conflicts- all generated by economic, social and political
arrangements, has become increasingly frequent in the last few years. A typical example
is the recurring crisis in Jos, Plateau State, North central Nigeria (a hitherto peaceful
place) where indigene-settler debacle and indiscriminate killings have been persistent.

Despite being the largest democracy in Africa and a new status as the world’s fourth
largest Democracy, the paradox of inexcusable, grinding poverty of the vast led majority
in the midst of the wanton wealth of a favored few, stare the citizen right in the face.
Even the most frequent optimist is beginning to loose hope of economic turnaround-
thanks to the many broken promise by politicians in the seat of power. But then is it that
the citizen’s expectations of democracy are unrealistic? Why has the dividend of
democracy been eluding the Nigerian people for the past eleven years of civil rule and is
there any hope for a turn around?

Building of these questions, this essay will highlight and examine the concepts of
democracy in Nigeria and Nigeria’s philosophy of governance. It will also expose the
underlining factors responsible for the failure of democracy to deliver to Nigerians. It will
further go to seek ways that democracy can deliver by discussing political and social
values that can transcend the current ailing democracy in Nigeria.

THE APPEAL
“Democracy is itself a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal
religion they have.”
B. White
In pre-independent Nigeria, the nation’s founding fathers struggled and fought to free the
nation from external colonization. On Oct 1st 1960, this feat was achieved and democratic
power – a political system guided by the principles of equity and freedom was handed to
Nigerians. Barely six years after independence was the democratic government in power
toppled by a military coup, marking the beginning of the political and social struggles
witnessed in Nigeria for almost three decades of military dictatorship.

The breakdown of law and order, degeneration of social infrastructure, economic

stagnancy, militarizing erstwhile civil structures with widespread corruption and poverty,
generated pro-democratic movements among Nigerians. The appeal to join the League of
Nations such as the United States and Britain where democracy is flourishing, parallel
with economic growth and abundance also deepened.

In the immediate wake of the transition from military rule to democratic kind of
governance eleven years ago, Nigerians expressed very high hopes for what democracy
has to offer. To the hungry, it means food on the table; to the unemployed, it means more
job opportunities; to the oppressed in the society it means justice at last. We –Nigerians,
were convinced that demnocracy as epitomized by the developed western world would
bring about the desired positive change in our social and economic status. The impression
is clear: Democracy results in economic prosperity and higher standards of living. Our
expectations of democracy hinges on this promise.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT
“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of
opportunities”.
Irvin Kristol

It has been eleven years since Nigerians embraced democracy (the largest period ever in
its history) but Nigerians are yet to bid farewell to the very situations that characterized
the military era-poverty, corruption, infrastructural decay, social menace, vast
unemployment and violation of basic human rights. This worrisome situation has
encouraged large-scale emigration especially among youths to other countries where it
was perceived, have more favourable social conditions. One thing stands out like a sore
thumb; it is that Nigerians are disappointed with what democracy has had to offer them
for more than a decade of its practice.

In truth, our perception of democracy is purely a utilitarian one. Americans obsess

intellectually about what democracy means; Nigerians ask what it deliver to them ...
Democracy can only be as popular as the results it delivers to Nigerians 1. The people
cannot be blamed for how quickly they want democratic dividends. The desire stems out
mainly from how democracy has been hyped as well as the material promises sung to the
ears by these political actors. Our special brand of democratic cannot be measured in
universally recorgnised achievements of human civilization which are human rights,
equity and responsiveness to public opinion.

Elected political officers play on the ignorance of the electorates perhaps because
majority of the electorates are political illiterates. They make empty promises during
campaign just to get a grip on power. Public service is not the motivating factor, but
material gain is. Political leaders in the country are the privileged few of the society that
have immense wealth while 70 percent of the masses live below the poverty line of less
than a dollar per day. According to an afrobarometre survey by New York times, 84% of
Nigerians were satisfied with how democracy was practiced in Nigeria in year 2000 but
the figure went down to about 25% in 2005 2

What baffles me is the assumption by our politician that democracy is its own
justification; that the mere fact that Nigeria has adopted democracy as a political system,
things would automatically bring to change. They forget too quickly they must be partly
responsible to work the engines that will drive the wheels of democratic progress. The
agonizing truth as acknowledged by many Nigerians is that the democracy we practice
lacks merit and readily suggests that citizens should lower their expectations to cover the
typical Nigerian politician’s excuse of “our democracy is still young”. This erroneous and

1
www.pambazuka.org/en/catagory/features/63116 Moses Ochonu: The failures of Nigerian Democracy-
2010 issue 474
2
Africa’s crisis of democracy with Nigeria at fore front by Lydia Polygreen – Published Sunday April 22,
2007 New York Times
misleading notion has created a perfect alibi for the political echelon of the Nigerian
society to carry out corrupt acts that has continued to ground the nation’s economy and
deny Nigerians democratic dividends.

In modern representative democracy, citizens have an equal share of political power –

that is freedom of choice to choose their leaders. In Nigeria the case is different.
Elections are marked with such wide spread rigging that the electorates vote almost
always fail to count. In our democracy, the masses lack real political power. This power
lies only in the hands of a “select” few who continue to recycle it amongst themselves;
hence, elections are just a charade. The resultant consequence is simple to predict: instead
of leaders making policies that would have direct benefits for Nigerians, polices that
would keep them in power and prolong their political ambitions were constituted. A very
typical scenario is the 2007 April 21st presidential elections in Nigeria where
government’s partisan meddling in the electoral process undermined the nationwide
polls. Voters registrations were marred both by logistical difficulties that prevented many
Nigerians from registering and by basic lack of transparency which gave reasons to doubt
the integrity of the final electoral register. According to Entiosile, the concept of political
equality is part of the justification of democracy.

THE CAUSE
“If liberty and equality as it thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they
will best be attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost”.
Aristotle.

For democracy to work in any given society, two general principles must be adhered to:
equality and freedom. Nigeria as a multifaceted society with diverse cultural, ethnic and
religious backgrounds, has not flourished because our democracy is devoid of equality
and freedom in practice. Simply, equality and freedom is a sine qua non for democracy to
deliver. Equality is reflected in an egalitarian society where all citizens are equal before
the law, in opinion with equal access to political power while freedom is guaranteed
when citizen’s rights and liberties are respected and protected. The question then is; what
are the factors responsible for the missing link between Nigeria’s democracy and equality
and freedom? By method of crude itemization I will make known my observations.

1. Responsibility In Governance.
The democratic government in Nigeria has not been able to imbibe the culture of
democracy which is responsibility. A democratic government’s responsibility is to be
accountable, reliable, trustworthy and sensible in handling the affairs of the state. Once a
government lags in its responsibility, it would be difficult to meet the legal and moral
claims of the citizens. According to Glotz (1926) in “the Greeks at work”, the emphasis
upon the democratic man “was upon responsibility rather than upon rights, upon activity
and work.” 3 An irresponsible government cannot deliver the dividends of democracy.

2. Costliness and Clash with African Culture.

Nigeria has failed to evolve its own form of democracy that can accommodate its cultural
and ethnic peculiarity without detriment to core universal democratic values. In content,
our democracy is laden with western influence and hypocrisy. Also, Nigeria’s democracy
operates on the principle of federal character meaning that so many unnecessary
portfolios needed to be created in other to have representatives of virtually every tribe.
Servicing these offices has made our democracy the most expensive in the world while
the citizens suffer.

3. Military Influence:
Nigeria has been unable to completely free herself from military influence. I beg not to be
understood. I do not mean that in a democratic setting, the military do not have a role to
play – in fact, its role is to defend and uphold the democratic integrity of the polity – but
in Nigeria, our democracy is hyper militarized. Let me elucidate this point with two
examples.

First, the 1999 constitution that governs the Nigerian state is not the product of a
democratic process, but a document imposed on us by a military sect prior to civilian rule

3
Glotz. G (1926) London, Rouledge and Kegern Pedel
on May 29, 1999. The constitution is not the common will of the people but rather the
army generals that wrote it. Such kinds of constitution can never uphold democratic
ideals of equality and freedom.

Second is the excessive use and parade of the army for internal security operation in the
society. This flagrant and repeated use of military power is dangerous and not democracy
friendly. It is a public display that our democracy is still tied to the umbilical cord of the
military. The indiscriminate exposure of guns and military outfit in public often reminds
one of a war zone. The hyper militarization of our civil society made it impossible to see
a clear divide in the professional roles between the police and the military on internal
security matters. A clear example is the recent Jos crisis in North-Central Nigeria where
civilians have accused the military on peace-mission of compromising interest and extra-
judicial killings. This accusation exacerbated the tension in the troubled zone and is
viewed by many as a threat to civilian freedom.

THE PANACEA
“The citizens can bring our political and governmental institution back to life, make them
responsible and accountable and keep them honest. No one can”.
John Gardner.

For democracy to deliver in Nigeria proactive measures must be taken to salvage the
remains from total collapse. As Nigeria prepares for another round of polls come 2011,
the country faces an opportunity more than at any crime in its history to build a society
that can guarantee justice, human dignity and civil liberties to all Nigerians 4. I therefore
propose a model approach on how democracy can deliver in Nigeria, focusing on four
core elements, Reorientation, personal responsibility, active participation and
responsive youths.

4
International Institute for democracy and educational assistance June 8, 2009. Democracy in Nig,
Continuing dialogue for nation building
Reorientation

There is a greater need for Nigerian citizen to redirect and redefine their interest on
national issues. They must understand that an unparalleled interest and knowledge about
political issues would to a large extent go in influencing those who represent them in
governance. But because of political illiteracy, corrupt government officials have found
their way to governance. For example, the popular Nigerian Idiom of “Chop I Chop”
which literarily means “So long as I benefit materially from any action, then such actions
are justified” is a classical case of mutual benefaction at the expense of any third party.
This misconceived idea has regrettably formed the basis of measuring equity and freedom
in the Nigerian society. Even the government officials are not immune to the “Chop I
Drop” syndrome- Afterall the people make up the government. This gives reasons why
the political class promises equality of conditions rather than promoting equality of
opportunities which are more fundamental to democratic ideals.

The process of re-orientation can only succeed under proper flow of information.
Therefore the informational role of the media must be fully operational and exploited.
Likewise, civil society groups have a duty in ensuring that the citizens are well aware of
their roles in political and governance matters as well as knowing their rights so that they
can make informed choices about those who will govern them. In concert, the citizens
must also be willing to change by showing genuine interest in their political environment
and entrench good moral and social values that can promote democracy.

Personal Responsibility
Citizens can begin to make their government more responsible themselves. A good
example to illustrate individual responsibility is Mahatma Gandi who was the
personification of responsibility. As a moralist, Gandi was preoccupied with personal
integrity and individual responsibility. He had great difficulty in coming to terms with the
need for collective discipline and moral comprises required by membership of the state.
Gandi claimed that every citizen was responsible for his actions and that responsibility
was in no way diminished by what other did or did not do.
For Gandhi it was the citizen’s sense of moral responsibility for his own actions that
ultimately determined the character of the state. Men were responsible for one another,
and if one of them turned delinquent the rest could not disown their equal responsibility
for his behaviour. Even as a wrongdoer must search his conscience, the others must probe
theirs. The slow and painful task of cultivating and consolidating the sense of humanity
and thereby laying the foundations of a truly moral community, was an essentially
collective responsibility. In Gandi’s view, the citizen is responsible for the action of his
government. The citizen is a party to its actions and partly responsible for their
consequences. A citizen cannot hide behind the façade of collective responsibility, for it
is composed and does not replace individual responsibility5.

Personal responsibility is a true reflection of patriotism. Citizens that have expectations

of its government must look inwardly at what they can do individually to better the
society. The spillover effect would be a stronger socio-economic platform for democracy
to thrive and deliver.

Active participation
Through collaborative innovation between citizens and their government, decision
making processes in governance could be participatory and much more effective in
impacting the people’s lives. This is because of the root of democracy that delivers are
innovative stakeholders invested in a peaceful political and economic condition. 6 The
citizen deliberative council which is the MacLean’s experiment is a good show of how
citizens can actively participate in governance. Let me give an insight of this experiment.

One weekend in June 1991, a dozen Canadians met at a resort north of Toronto, under the
auspices of MacLean’s; Canada’s leading news weekly. They had been scientifically
chosen so that together, they reflected on all the major sectors of public opinion in their
deeply divided country. Each of these people had accepted the invitation to attend this
5
www..intime.uni.edu / culled from parekh, B.C (1989) Gandi’s Political Philosophy Notre Dame,
. Unv. of Notre Dame Press.
6
Anne Marie Slaughter- Building Partnerships for prosperity and Democracy –
www.cipe.org.
weekend event, where they would be engaging in dialogue with people whose views
differed from their own strongly held beliefs. The dialogue was facilitated by Harvard
University Law Professor Roger Fisher, co-author of the classic “Getting to yes” and two
colleagues. These ordinary citizens have never engaged in a process like this before.
They started with widely divergent positions and little trust among themselves. The
process took place under tremendous time pressure, as well as under the eye of a camera
crew from CTV television who was recording the event for a special public-affairs
program. Nonetheless, these folks succeeded in the assignment of developing a consensus
vision for the entire country of Canada.77

Just like in the experience of the MacLean’s experiment, active participation through
collaborative efforts between citizens and their government can help democracy
persevere by investing in the ingenuity, creativity and originality of citizens. This would
entail waging war against mass illiteracy by committing to education, involvement of
community foundations as well as other supporters of participatory democracy.

Responsive youth class

Every society is defined by the strength of its youth. This is because the youth class is the
most vulnerable of the society and often used as tools for violence. In Nigerian for
example, the youth numbers about 40million of the 150million population and the
number of registered voters (18 years and above) in the country as at 2006 is about
62million8.Which means if the youth come together with one voice, they could be a
powerful force to reckon with. But as a youth, we have failed due to some challenges.

First, most Nigerian youths do not vote. The excuse is that votes do not count. But the
question is; shouldn’t we have attempted voting first, to see if our efforts can change our
reality? Second, even those that do vote, do so for the wrong reasons like money, peer
pressure and ethnicity. Third is, most youth lack clear political ideology as well as

7
www.taoofdemocracy.com/sample
The book: The TAO of Democracy sample chapter 6
8
www.nigeria muse.com/2009
patronage and support. Fourth, is that the youth lack enough resources to be involved in
politics, perhaps because they make up the highest number of the unemployed bracket.

Therefore for youth to positively impact the political scene, they must first of all develop
good leadership skills by giving themselves to leadership training as well improving on it.
Also, the youth must identify strongly with institutions that support democracy in other to
get adequate support whether legal or moral. In addition, the youth must find ways to
mobilize resources via civil society groups or international community foundations that
are committed to supporting the youth cause. Finally, the youth class must recognize the
fact that they are capable of being the first line of change to making democracy work in
the country by been overtly involved in every voting process.

CONCLUSION
As democracy appears to be thriving in different historical, cultural and religious settings
such as the USA, Britain and India, it certainly remains the most reasonable political
system of governance. Although emphasizing on how democracy is practiced in Nigeria,
with suggestive solutions, the approach of reorientation, personal responsibility, active
participation and responsive youth class described in this paper is equally applicable to
other ailing democracies in the world. Most especially, the youth must come together to
take charge of their countries for in their hands lie her destiny?