There’s a drawback concerning the institutional framework wherein the Nigerian state as presently constituted is predicated. To have democracy, good governance and credible elections, there should be institutional reforms and nice accountability in authorities. The three are interwoven, solely that we are likely to suppose that democracy is all about elections. In any case, the truth that these elements are at the moment lacking is a sign that Nigeria nonetheless has an extended technique to go. In spite of everything, with out democracy and governance, there can’t be credible elections.
To place it politely, Nigeria, whilst we converse, has very weak establishments, and with no practical justice system, she will’t be mentioned to have credible elections. For any democracy to face and be as its definition, the facility of credibility can’t be underestimated. Nonetheless, the achievement of this ‘credibility’ is a large activity, as a result of credibility means various things to completely different actors in democracy, extra in order the definition hovers across the similar middle: the folks.
However, the problems of credibility in our elections requires a critical convention, making an allowance for the extent of litigations that at all times go together with elections in Nigeria. Take, for instance, the UK the place just one electoral dispute has ever gone to court docket over an extended time period. After all, it’s as a result of she has a practical judiciary and no one would wish to waste his sources on frivolous litigations. The lawyer who handles such circumstances may even be disbarred. So, how come Nigeria stays a semi-democratic nation 25 years into the 4th Republic?
In any critical democracy, it’s the authorities that units the suitable template for an election to carry. Not like international locations like Spain, France, South Africa, even another African international locations, Nigeria wants a constitutional court docket in order that her political practitioners can originate and conclude constitutional points in file time. In a constitutional court docket for example, the useless imbroglio at the moment troubling the peace of Rivers State gained’t even take greater than two to a few weeks to resolve, as a substitute of this long-winded abracadabra, which is little doubt affecting the notion of Nigeria as an unserious economic system.
What we’re saying is that governance and elections are intertwined and {that a} political economic system that’s missing in inner safety mechanisms, weaponizes and truly glorifies poverty will not be one the place credible elections might be held as a result of it’s based mostly on state seize. In a rustic beneath the subordination of the state to highly effective people and vested pursuits, the concept is to make the folks very poor in order that, on an election day, potential voters might be induced. Even when there’s no election, the plenty are induced with palliatives. The tragic reality is that political entrepreneurship has change into the parameter for politicking and the determinant of victory. In any other case, why ought to minimal wage even be a debate in Nigeria?
‘Ojú to dilè ni iroré ń so.’ (Pimples often infect an idle face. The infamous reality is that we are able to’t have practical democracy, good governance and credible elections with no sound academic system. Had Nigeria additionally been blessed with a delicate political class, Nigerians would have been benefiting from free and obligatory training way back to 1974 or 1975. After all, the distinction would have been that Nigeria wouldn’t have been having all these issues due to a greater educated inhabitants. Matter-of-factly, the higher educated the individuals are, the higher and the saner the alternatives. A greater educated inhabitants is a greater knowledgeable and extra productive inhabitants. However when politics fails to ship its items to the folks, ready for a lot chemistry to work on the similar tempo for improvement to indicate up turns into the norm. Clearly, that’s what Awolowo obtained proper and that’s why folks like Joseph Stiglitz gained the Nobel Prize for Economics.
Secondly, obligatory training is the most effective type of inhabitants management. On the day of Nigeria’s independence in 1960, the UK because the parting colonial energy had 7 million extra folks than Nigeria. Whereas Nigeria’s inhabitants grew from 44,928,342 in 1960 to 229,152,217 in 2024, the British inhabitants has grown by solely 15.34 million since 1960. The implementation of the Schooling Act of 1947, which made training free and obligatory as much as the age of 18 within the UK led to the halving of her inhabitants inside one technology. Why and the way? Educated folks “marry later” and have fewer kids. What’s extra? Educated populace is healthier expert, has greater buying energy parity and plenty of different benefits. That’s why international locations like Italy and Japan have declining inhabitants progress.
They’re really begging and bribing their residents to have extra kids. For Nigeria, the story is pathetically completely different!
Neglect the delusion of grandeur, except some steps are taken in the suitable route, Nigeria as a rustic could also be quick sliding into irrelevance. For instance, South Africa is at the moment the most important economic system in Africa, in fact with the soundest fundamentals. She is adopted by Egypt and Algeria and solely God is aware of the true occupier of the 4th place between Nigeria and Morocco. South Africa has robust establishments of the state. As a matter of truth, the ruling African Nationwide Congress (ANC) is already afraid of shedding the forthcoming elections. Most significantly, she has fundamental industries like iron and metal and machine instruments. So, she manufactures and exports vehicles to Europe. Not like Nigeria, South Africa doesn’t assemble vehicles. As former President Donald Trump as soon as mentioned, “If you happen to don’t have metal, you don’t have a rustic.”
When it comes to fundamentals due to this fact, arrest Nigeria’s descent into irrelevance ought to be the important thing query.
However how did we get right here? When Nigeria determined to throw away the Lyttleton’s, 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, it turned apparent that the nation was gone. Brazil at the moment operates the 1988 Structure, which is the seventh enacted because the nation’s independence in 1822, and the sixth because the proclamation of the republic in 1889. Have a look at immediately’s Brazil! She’s at the moment the world’s ninth largest economic system. Not solely that, 92% of all new vehicles bought in Brazil are powered, not by petroleum motor spirit, pms, however by the ethanol derived from sugarcane. For higher certainty, Brazil is a large producer of sugarcane. Impliedly, had Nigeria stored up her existence on the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, she’d have been powering not lower than 92% of her vehicles by ethanol derived from cassava.
In spite of everything, pricey nation is at the moment the world’s largest producer of cassava with an annual output of over 34 million tonnes of tuberous roots. What this implies is that, as a substitute of shopping for a litre of pms for N700.00, ethanol derived from cassava wouldn’t have price greater than N130.00. In addition to, that might have been a lift for agriculture and trade would have been aggressive as a result of its price could be decrease. Added to those is that the future of employment technology within the nation would have been given a lift-up.