NIGERIANS and their democracy are unique. If elsewhere
people delight in the capacities of their government to deepen
their liberties, broaden opportunities, our democracy is
delivered as structures, visible and tangible. We call them
dividends of democracy.
The lure of dividends, a throw back to the days when the
economy supported companies making the returns to
shareholders, has created an array of expectations. People
expect democracy to translate to instant wellbeing. Politicians
egg them on in the desires for a better life, which they paint
in rosy strokes, but often do not deliver.
Where people expect employment, health services, rural
development, education, governments point to peace and
unity (currently eluding many parts) as dividends of
democracy. Dividends of democracy manifest in renovated
schools, repainted hospitals, more vehicles for the judiciary
and security agencies. They are celebrated as if their impacts
would in a wave wipe out the deep-seated issues distracting
the country.
One of them is the tendency to deny the people their rights
to choose, especially their leaders. Choice as a foundation of
democracy is reflected in the importance and regularity of
elections. The decisions about leaders must be made in fairer
setting and in ways that produce leaders whose acceptability
derives from the processes.
Equating physical developments with dividends of
democracy could result in dissipating the more important
aspects of democracy and by extension accepting any form
of rule, as long as it builds better roads and bridges.
Democracy is deeper. May 29 and the liberties it has brought
since 1999 are reminders of the possibilities of democratic
governance.
Democracy awards us vast liberties which our Constitution
enunciates. We must expand our peoples’ rights to life, to
ownership of property, to participation in the economy and
most importantly, their participation in politics. The rights to
security of lives and property are facing challenges; they
should be tackled more decisively.
Rights have prospered or withered in various measures in
the past 14 years. Nigerians like to be heard, they have been
talking. Is anyone listening? More people are agitating for
more States or local governments. Others want re-
structuring, to award the States more powers. Would
Nigerians be free to live wherever they wish? Democracy
should induce more economic competition among Nigeria’s
federating units and improve lives. Would the current review
of the Constitution address these?
Democracy is about the people. The consistent exclusion of
the people in decisions about them is undemocratic. It is at
the centre of the agitations that question the relevance of
democracy and minimises people’s stake in Nigeria.
May 29 can be saved from being a ritual when our
governments are about the people and for the people.