From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, yesterday, bemoaned the state of democracy in Nigeria stating that it has failed and collapsed completely.
Mr. Obi, who was a guest at a panel discussion at a Colloquium to mark the 60th birthday of former Imo State governor, Emeka Ihedioha, with the theme “Democracy: Is it failing in Africa? noted that while some people laid a foundation for the current democratic rule in the country and built it to an extent, another set of people came and knocked it down.
He recalled that prior to his impeachment as governor of Anambra State, Olusegun Obasanjo made efforts to dissuade the Anambra House of Assembly from sacking him. He expressed regret that today, it is the president that impeaches a state governor.
“If you look at what Bishop Kukah said, he said it is work in progress. If you look at where we are, they started in 1999, laid the foundation. Some people came and took it to decking.
“Some people were trying to raise it to the first floor and some people came and knocked everything down. That is the situation we are in now. Everything has been knocked down. Nothing works.
“And I am somebody who can say this exemplarily. I became a governor through the court when Obasanjo and Atiku (Abubakar) were in government. I did not pay the court one naira. I was sitting in my house when the Court declared me winner. It can’t happen in Nigeria today.
“When I was being impeached, the president (Obasanjo) sent people to come and intervene on my behalf. Ken Nnamani came begging the House (Assembly) people not to impeach me. Today, the president impeaches. So, it has collapsed. It has failed. Let’s talk about how we are going to rebuild it.”
Speaking earlier, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Rev. Fr. Hassan Kukah, noted that democracy in Africa is a work in progress. He, however, stated that there was a need for the democratisation of development, if democracy must be developed in the continent. He added that the problem in Nigeria is that the country has not been able to resolve the issue of citizenship.
While stating that democracy is about equity, the cleric noted that there must be a mechanism for measuring the growth of democracy, otherwise the chase for a democratic society would become an empty one.
“Democracy is about equity. It is about justice. We all want the same thing. How do we know that a country is democratised? We can know by the quality. Even a blind man can tell when it’s raining. We don’t need to preach about democracy.
“The question people should ask is why should we allow our people to be nostalgic about the military, about colonial rules, because there are times Nigerians have said openly, ‘we wish white people will come back. We wish the military will come back.’ The question, therefore, is whether we measure our democracy by the kind of things we want for ourselves.
“The democratisation of development leads to the development of democracy. That is if you decide to equitably democratise development, and not take every institution, university, medical school, whatever to your village and if all the roads are done.
“If you appreciate the fact that the poor people living in the hill, living across the River, too didn’t come to accompany you, so if we are honest enough to democratise development, we will be able to develop democracy…
“The challenge for us in Nigeria is that everytime, I think, it was my friend Donald Duke who made the point, he said that everybody who comes as a governor wants to go back to the bottom of the hill to start something completely different.
“If we do not have a mechanism by which we are measuring our growth, our chase for a democratic society becomes an empty chase.
“Democracy and its principles are in endless contestations, both of ideas, opportunity and privileges, because those who are privileged want to hold on to their privileges and those who are victims want to insist that life can be better.”
However, former Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, in his submission, insisted that it is not democracy that has failed in Nigeria, but the operators. He noted that success or otherwise of the country’s democracy is a function of those operating it.
While referencing the recent resort to voice vote to approve emergency rule in Rivers by the National Assembly, the former speaker of the House of Representatives said it was the operators that flouted the rules.
He stated that democracy is still the best form of government for the country, noting that it behooves on the operators to make it work.
“Even from the conclusions of Bishop Kukah, he did say that democracy is work in progress. Even from our own experience here in Nigeria, from 1999 today, we have seen how different governments handled near similar issues differently. I would like to say that it has to do with the operators of a system at a given time. If they play by the rules, democracy works. If they do otherwise, it will be failing. It falters.”