As Nigerians get set for another round of electioneering process, the Institute of Directors Nigeria (IoD) has warned that Nigeria needed a new model of governance in which political leadership is based on the knowledge and competence of both political leaders and the electorate.
According to the IoD, such thinking can only originate from a society where civic education is high and where the electorate can make informed choices about leadership.
“In Nigeria, most citizens are uneducated on political issues. Simultaneously, those who are highly educated are increasingly becoming indifferent to political participation. They seemed to have lost faith in the power of their votes and the integrity of the political system,” Ije Jidenma, president and chairman of governing council of the IoD, said during the hybrid 38th annual general meeting (AGM) of the Institute.
According to her, for the system to work in Nigeria, there must be significant improvement in literacy level so that citizens are educated about the issues and can use their knowledge to make informed decisions about Nigeria’s political future.
“The failure of governance in Nigeria manifests in the declining capacity of political leaders to ameliorate systemic challenges such as election fraud, terrorist attacks, herder-farmer conflict, armed banditry, and police brutality. Nigeria needs an overhauled system of governance that is built on the foundation laid by the nationalist political leaders. A continuation of the current system will only accelerate the erosion of public trust in the democratic institutions,” Jidenma said.
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Speaking further on the political landscape, she said there is an expectation for political leaders to recognize systemic risks such as terrorist attacks, herder-farmer conflict, and police brutality and put in place the necessary infrastructure to gather relevant data for problem solving. “But the insufficiency of political savvy required to navigate the challenges that Nigeria faces has unleashed unrest across the nation and exacerbated existing tensions,” she said.
On the macroeconomic environment of the country as depicted by the unreflective decline in inflation, she said Nigeria’s inflation rate reduced for the first time in almost two years in April 2021 after rising steadily since September 2019. However, it brought no substantial relief to Nigeria s who still had to contend with high prices of goods.
“Nigeria’s border closure policy, which kicked off in August 2018, as a strategy to boost local production yielded little gains as inflation began to rise steadily from September 2019. Since then, inflation rose to its peak at 18.17 percent in March 2021 and was on a steady define for eight consecutive months to 15.4 percent in November 2021. The decline in inflation remained unreflective and the purchasing power of Nigeria’s continued to be eroded,” Jidenma said.
Speaking on the Nigerian business environment, she said that based on the World Bank’s ease of doing business, Nigeria is ranked 131 among 190 economies. According to her, this is partly because the Nigerian business environment has been faced with lots of challenges that have weakened investors’ confidence in the economy.
“These challenges include insecurity, uncertainty, political, environmental and cultural disparities. Despite these challenges and given that a lot remains undone, Nigeria is slowly but surely checking the boxes when it comes to the ease of doing business, resulting in the country being one of the topmost hubs for business, trade and investment,” she concludes.
