Democracy in Nigeria: The Indispensable Role of the Citizens

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was and never will be – Thomas Jefferson

I travelled to Abuja last week Thursday with Airpeace. The day before, I received a mail which informed me that the flight had been rescheduled from 10:30am to 10:00am. On getting to the airport, I also realised that the 8:30am flight was also rescheduled to 10:00am. The passengers were clearly not happy with these changes.  We began boarding late and by 10:25 we had completely boarded. Then the Captain announced that there would be a slight delay, as we had to wait for the arrival of Mr Babatunde Fowler, the Executive Chairman of Federal Island Revenue Service (FIRS). We were all shocked, firstly, we didn’t know how long we would have to wait for Mr Fowler moreover the plane was hot, were we going to wait in the heat? Ironically, some persons did not even know who Fowler was and for him to have delayed the flight he ought to be someone important or at least very popular. What was clear was that everyone was shocked and visibly angry. Those in the Business class were dumbfounded. In the midst of all this, a lady stood up and spoke of the level of impunity in Nigeria and how we had to stop it. Her husband was beside her and he was totally amazed but very proud. In conclusion, she told the airhostess to tell the captain, that he had two options, it’s either he flies us or he flies Mr Fowler alone.  Everyone agreed and the airhostess hurriedly ran to convey our message to the captain. The captain apologised and flew us without waiting for Mr Fowler. We cheered and clapped for ourselves and we felt powerful. The problem with Nigeria and how intoxicated people get when they acquire power no matter how little became the topic of conversation on-board. Indeed power corrupts.

This experience was quite revealing. Unknowingly to me, that was not going to be all for the day. At the car park, I took a taxi. As the taxi man was about to drive out form the car park, a convoy of 5 cars was approaching and he was signalled by the first car to stop. He didn’t, he entered the road a little bit, which made the convoy to stop, when they stopped, he asked them the following:“Why can’t I enter? Why are you treating us this way? We put you in power and yet you’re mistreating us. He said all these in pidgin. Then he said “I am an APC member and I campaigned for you, I got the dent on my car when I was campaigning for you”. Then he opened the dashboard and showed them his APC membership card and the APC banner. The policemen and the personal assistant of the politician were shocked and they did not say anything.

Although they still had their way, I think they got the message.

While in the taxi, I tried to think of these experiences and I came to the conclusion that the people are powerful, we really command enormous power and we can do a lot if only we realise we have such power and make use of it. Unfortunately, the long period of military rule and rigged elections have convinced the people that it’s either they are powerless or their power amounted to nothing.

In the midst of all this, I tried to balance out my new discovery with the idea of Late Chinua Achebe who posited that the problem of Nigeria is simply and squarely that of leadership. I have been a student of Achebe’s school of thought for quite a while and I have defended it at every opportunity. It was very difficult balancing this because there are lots of examples, where competent and visionary leadership have brought positive developments to their county, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore is a good example.

The question then is what about the people? In a situation where the leaders are inept and are unwillingly to effect positive change what is the other option? Democracy is popularly defined as the government of the people by the people and for the people. In this definition, it is not a mere coincidence that the word “government” appears once while the word “people” appears thrice, rather it is very instructive. It means that a lot depends on the people, as such if the people are not intelligent, patriotic and informed, democracy would not function efficiently.

Franklin D. Roosevelt argued strongly that the real and only safeguard of democracy is education. That means an educated populace can decide to a great extent the workings of its government. In a sense, when a country has educated and politically active populace the government becomes a relay station.

This education isn’t merely a formal education which will culminate in the award of a degree, it is an education which will empower the citizens to know their rights, speak up when their rights are violated and to defend those rights. The taxi driver though unable to communicate in fluent English knew his rights and knew that the power which the political class have and enjoy emanated from him. If majority of Nigerians had these kind of political education, we would be in a better situation to interact with the political class. And politics will transcend from stomach infrastructure -which all politicians are guilty of- to real demands of governance.

Confucius used to say “if your plan is for 1 year, plant rice, if it is for 10 years plant trees, if it is for 100 year educate children”. The different governments in Nigeria over the years have failed to have foresight past a 4 years period, the only time they think past 4 years is when they are interested in second tenure, with this kind of myopic vision important issues such as education, health are not tackled nor invested in, they prefer planting rice, sharing wheel barrows, erecting statues, painting walls and sidewalks etc. Not necessarily because they are ignorant of the importance of education, most especially political education, on the contrary they are aware of it and are scared of what it will lead. Justice Oputa used to say “ without education what is man but a splendid slave” Our politicians wouldn’t mind us being slaves, they would prefer we are not empowered and exposed so that in our ignorance we would be perpetually docile and unable to know what to demand from them.

Without education there can never be democracy, because the foundations of democracy are an intelligent and informed electorate. Unfortunately, the government is the worst institution to look up to in order to remedy this tide because they are precisely the problem. It boils down to us “the people”.

Thomas Jefferson argued: I know no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves and if we think them not enlighten enough to exercise their control, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power”

 

J.B Nwachukwu

Nwachukwu is a lawyer and a writer, [email protected]