On paper, Nigeria is a democracy. We have “elected” officials at every level of government. The consistently very poor conduct of elections coupled with very low level of voters turn out at elections speak volumes of our brand of democracy.
Just last Saturday, the Lagos State Government shut down the state, Nigeria’s economic powerhouse, for most of the day to conduct local government elections for the positions of local government chairmen and councillors. The results of the elections surprised no one. The surprise was the extremely low turnout. In the history of elections in Nigeria, turnouts had never been this low. In the Lekki Phase1 area of the state, I took a walk around some parts of the area (vehicular movement was banned for the duration of the exercise) and it appeared as if it was a Streets’ Soccer Day as many young electorates scoffed at the election and enjoyed themselves with footballing. For all the streets I walked, I did not see any polling station. I only spotted a parked commercial bus carrying election personnel and voting materials.
Media reports I monitored were similar to what I observed in my locale. Apart from the alleged widespread irregularities, systemic inefficiencies and voter’s disenfranchisement, which are characteristic of most elections in Nigeria, the Electoral College Nigeria, a civic organization, called the last Lagos State local government election a “coronation”. It said that of the about 10 million voters, only 275,000 voted. At less than 3 percent turnout, that is a historic low and should be in Guinness Book of Records. With such abysmally low voter turnout, can it truly be said that those who “won” in the election have the mandate of the residents of Lagos to govern them? The civic organization said that it was a vote of no confidence in both the credibility of the system and the agency organizing it.
With all the noise and campaigning that followed the 2023 general elections, not more than 26.7 percent of the electorate voted in the presidential election. Going by the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) report, only 8.8 million Nigerians (that translates to about 6 percent of the electorate) voted for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi got 7 million and 6 million votes respectively. Registered voters were 93.5 million in a population of 125 million people from age 18 (eligibility age) and above.
In effect, roughly a quarter of registered voters went out to vote for their preferred presidential candidates while three quarters spurned the election. I am not aware that after the elections INEC sought to find out why greater majority of voters refused to participate in electing who should rule them. But the reasons are not far fetched: lack of confidence in the electoral system (many voters have come to the painful conclusion that their votes do not count), lack of genuine benefits from successive governments, insecurity at polling stations and other issues.
Unfortunately, most Nigerians have given up on the governments at all levels. While majority of the electorates languish in abject misery, they see elected and appointed officials live in obscene opulence. Once one gets elected or appointed into public office, it becomes an automatic ticket to a life of material abundance. People who hold public offices brazenly help themselves with public funds because they know that they will not be made to account. They even shamelessly flaunt their ill gotten wealth everywhere they go. They buy houses all over the place, drive the costliest automobiles, embark on expensive vacations, stage talk-of-the-town parties, and buy many vanities.
Already, the Tinubu government, which is barely two years old, has all but abandoned governance and prepared more for the next election as if winning elections were an end in themselves. Almost every move by the government is aligned towards winning the next election. Some parts of Lagos are already adorned with the 2027 campaign posters of the president even as he has not publicly announced his candidacy. What importunate insensitivity in the midst of poor governance. As things stand, the exchange rate of the Naira, interest rates, unemployment rates, productivity and manufacturing, infrastructure, education and health services are all on decline since this government took over power. Poverty and insecurity are on the rise. But these are nothing to those who are lording it over the country.
And the rubber stamp National Assembly is busy with further amendments to the 1999 constitution. Sounds like patchy work on a shredded car tyre. There is not enough patching of the 1999 constitution that will do the magic wand. That constitution was not written by the Nigerian people but a document by the military junta that held the country hostage for decades.
What needs to happen is for the National Assembly to cause for a fresh constitution to be written by the people for the people. Before he became president, Tinubu was in the forefront of Nigerians advocating for the convocation of a sovereign national conference. Since he mounted the saddle, not as much as a whiff on political rhetoric has come from his side on what he used to expound on as an opposition leader, which explains the hypocrisy of our politicians.
Because the president is more interested in going for a second term than enthroning a better Nigeria, the least that the National Assembly can do is to initiate a process for the production of a new constitution for Nigeria. The current constitution is fundamentally flawed and the series of amendments can at best produce token gains that will not in any way shift a needle. Anything short of a new constitution is a total waste of time and resources.
Unfortunately, agitation for state creation is taking the centre stage in the current constitutional amendment process as a bait, a political aphrodisiac to garner popularity and deviate people’s attention from the real issues that afflict the nation. Creation of more states will not solve any meaningful problem for Nigeria.
History is on my side on this. Nigeria was a more prosperous, peaceful, influential, respected and potentially powerful nation under a 12 state structure. It does seem that the more states we have, the more trouble we manufacture. Now with a 36 states and federal capital territory structure (most of which are too dependent on the centre), we are more divided than we were before now. If you take my home state, Akwa Ibom, as an example, one would think that as small and nearly monolithic as it is; and awash with petrol Naira, one would not hear of a demand for state creation. Alas, the southernmost part of the state wants to “secede”! Assuming, all the states demanded now are created, give Nigerians a decade and you will start hearing of “injustices” in certain states and the need for more state creation!
This is not how serious nations are built. We can’t be skirting around mundane issues for decades when other nations that are less endowed are making progress and strides in different spheres of human endeavours. Nations that were in the backwaters of history when Nigeria was a true giant of Africa and a medium power are ones we are looking up to bail us out of our self inflicted wounds. What a shame and a joke we have become.
SHORT TAKE:
President Mohammadu Buhari
Ordinarily, I am suppose to be doing a tribute on this man. In 2015 I was all out for his presidency. I had thought that he would turn things around for the nation. The goodwill, the charisma and the discipline mien he displayed, he burnt them quickly. He didn’t take him long to disappoint many as he demonstrated that he had no plan for the nation other than to be its president.
That he died in a hospital in London, after being the president of this country for eight years, is a clear testament of his misrule. In the 1970s and 1980s when Buhari was the military head of state, foreigners used to troop to the University College Hospital, Ibadan for medical treatment. But our former president few years before he became president, during his presidency and after, he was always visiting a hospital in the United Kingdom.
Had he not become president, the myth would have remained that he was the best president Nigeria never had. He used his hands to destroy that myth. As President of Nigeria, he left office worse than he met it.
Now, those who wanted to bank on him to boost their fortunes in the 2027 general elections have kissed the canvas.
Adieu, President Mohammadu Buhari.
