Prior to the re-emergence of de-
mocracy in Nigeria in May,1999,
political pundits specifically
blamed the socioeconomic and political
instability on the military.
Specifically, while many at that time
roundly accused the military of intoler-
ance, immature, corrupt, and serious-
ness, unpatriotic and tribalistic, some
were of the view that until the plunder-
ing and debilitating hands of the military
are removed from governance, and re-
placed with democracy-that guarantees
rule of law- and ensures decision will be
tested, studied, reviewed, and examined
through the processes of government
that are designed to formulate and im-
plement such policies,the nation’s infra-
structures, education, health and power
sectors can never be reconstructed and
Nigerians will not enjoy a boom of cre-
ativity and productivity, others vividly
castigated the military for terminating
democracy and its elements-popular
sovereignty, political equality, political
freedom and majority rule.
Indeed, for clearification, no develop-
ment-minded Nigeria, looking at their
past records here and at global stage, will
support a military or any undemocratic
forms of government. As mountains of
evidence attest that such leadership styles
are often always reputed for putting peo-
ple in prison for their convictions and
limit all forms of free expressions and
associations.
However, for the past two decades, I
have followed with curiousity news re-
ports, commentaries, opinion articles
and street reactions for and against dif-
ferent political decisions, policies and
actions of the nation’s democratically
elected officials. And, a careful analysis
of democracy as a system of government
in relation to various political and soci-
oeconomic occurances in the country
within the period under review, it pro-
vides a canonical proof that democracy
just like every other system lacks capac-
ity for producing a definite outcome as
it depend largely on how they are em-
ployed.
As an illustration, comprehensive eval-
uation of the machanics of power, its
acquisition, and its exercise in Nigeria
which has resulted in fractured political
geography into polarised ‘ethnosyncra-
sies’ and idiosyncrasies, coupled with
recent fiscal, sociological, political and
communal happenings in the country;
coupled with the pockets of Ethno-re-
ligious upheavals and misgivings from
one region against another,bring agi-
tation of different forms and shapes, its
enough to feel concerned and look dif-
ferently at our system and method.
Separate from the belief that since the
return of democracy in the country, the
nation has conducted different elections
that cannot be characterized as credible
because they were never organized in an
atmosphere of peace, devoid of rancor
and acrimony, there have been so many
sad chapters of democratic practice that
sets it apart from that of the wider world.
These include; elected officials use
of office as an opportunity for private
gain instead of avenue for public good.
Others include but not limited to; poor
leadership; poor strategy for develop-
ment; lack of capable and effective state
and bureaucracy; lack of focus on sectors
that will improve the condition of living
of citizens such as education, health, ag-
riculture and the building of infrastruc-
ture; corruption and undeveloped.
A painful example of these failures and
its impact on the nation’s economy is
the national carrier, Nigeria Airways. It
was factually supported that as at 1972,
Nigeria Airways used to be a super con-
tinental airline, traveling to over 1,500
destination across the globe, generating
150 billion naira profit yearly, and pro-
viding jobs to about 10,000 Nigerians,
Kenyans, Ethiopians and South Africans,
to the admiration and amazement of for-
eign nations. In the same, style, when
Nigeria lunched her first television in
1959, under the watch of Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, it did that ahead of China,
Canada, Netherlands, and a lot of other
Europeans, Asia and South American
countries today.
To find solution to this situation that
have persistently occurred for two dec-
ades unabated, two vital points need to
be underlined.
First and fundamental, is that to enjoy
good governance, we need not just de-
mocracy as a system of government but
good people (both leaders and followers)
who understand public order, personal
and national security, economic and so-
cial programmes, and prosperity is not
the natural order of things but depends
on the ceaseless efforts and attentions
from an honest and effective govern-
ment that the people elect. That, howev-
er, good the system may be, bad leaders
will bring harm to their people-but sev-
eral nations, such as China without dem-
ocratic ethos have been well governed
despite poor system because good and
capable leaders were involved.
To explain the above fact, China, aside
from being ruled, ‘increasingly dictato-
rially by an unelected communist party
that puts people in prison for their con-
victions and limits all forms of free ex-
pressions and associations’, the country
economic and scientific achievements
support the claim that not the system
of government but the quality of lead-
ers in charge that determine the height
a state or society could go. it is a coun-
try that has just experienced a period of
economic growth, the likes of which the
world had never before seen. Its model,
says a report blazes a new trail for other
developing countries to achieve mod-
ernization and offers a new option for
other countries and nations who want to
speed up their development.
The second concern is that until Nige-
rians develop the freedom of conscience
and religion, freedom of thoughts and
belief, opinion and expression, including
freedom of the press and other media
of communication, freedom of peaceful
assembly, freedom of association and
political/electoral sovereignty reside in,
take actions that will change the narra-
tive, no reform, measures or intervention
coming from other quarters will reverse
the shocking infrastructural decay and
degradation on the nation’s space, or save
this suffering democracy. Until Nigeri-
ans themselves re-examine their roles in
allowing and not preventing the danger-
ous imbalance that has emerged with the
executive branch dominating the consti-
tutional system.
Viewed differently, these worries may
not be in any way unique to Nigerians
as Samuel Bagg of McGill University in
a recent report expressed similar worry
about democracy when he passionate-
ly submitted that; political ignorance,
shortsightedness, and irrationality of
the ordinary citizens are the major chal-
lenges confronting democracy; warning
that for a nation to have a responsible
government, such a decision must not
be left in the hands of political ignorant
or the ordinary citizens or given freely to
everyone.
In absolute terms, the above argument
may not be wrong as; political ignorance,
shortsightedness, and citizen’s non-pos-
session of action logic to study the var-
ious propositions presented by the lead-
ers in the past, has resulted in situations
where politicians persuaded electorates
to endorse and applaud policies that
were harmful to their interest.
In my objective views, democracy is
not the problem but Nigerians.
Jerome-Mario Utomi, Lagos.
