Why Nigeria’s democracy is stagnating compared to Ghana, others – Activist

…says coup D’etat stems from poverty, disempowerment of Africans

Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, a Professor of Political Science and Human Rights Activist, says Ghana’s democracy has made significant gains over the last two decade compared to Nigeria, explaining that in Ghana there are concerted attempts at institutional building which is evident in some innovations and incremental improvements in the electoral process and brinksmanship.

Odion-Akhaine noted that in Ghana unlike in Nigeria, the Electoral Commission, the Judiciary, and Security Agencies demonstrated institutional strength through resilience, professionalism, and impartial adjudication of electoral matters.

The Professor stated this while presenting the 103rd Onaugural Lecture of the Lagos State University (LASU), entitled, “Shifting For Good: The Weapon Of Empiricism In The Disorder Of A Third Wave Of Democracy In Africa.”

The Political Scientist said that Ghanaian democracy had grown qualitatively, while Nigeria’s democracy had only grown quantitatively.

“The international community also helped to set up the peace council comprising religious and civic leaders that mediated election conflicts”, he said.

Drawing an allusion from Ghana’s leap with democratic transition that has seen power changing hands in four election cycles between the two leading parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New People’s Party (NPP) since 2000, he noted that Nigeria had only witnessed transfer of power from the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) once in 2015.

Arguing that the Nigerian republic has continued to manifest the ills of the past, he attributed this to four major pathologies.

He revealed that the first, is the absence of free and fair elections, saying that virtually all the elections since 1999 had been rigged in absolute disregard to the democratic method anchored on the principle of consent of the governed.

“It got so bad that the Commonwealth Observers reported that Nigeria went below the standard, it set for itself in the 2007 election.

“The beneficiary of that election, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, admitted so and set up the Uwais Panel to reform the electoral process”.

He stated that the absence of fair elections were the politically motivated killings that had blighted the political landscape.

“The third term genie reared its head and was quickly smashed by the combined forces of the political and civil society elite”, he added.

The Professor said secondly, the human rights violations had characterised every administration since 1999 exemplified by heinous violations such as Odi, Zaki Biam, and more recently Okuama massacres, and Boko Haram insurgency had created additional horrific human rights violations. “Identity politics writ large in the polity”, he noted.

He said thirdly, apart from periodic ethnic clashes among the various ethnic groups, ethnic identity as of old had continued to define voting patterns.

Fourthly, he said the mismanagement of public funds, had been unprecedented in Nigeria’s fourth republic, stating that in the special political report on Nigeria, the Nigerian economy was described as one that was non-productive andindolence-rewarding.

He said, “This perspective of the national economy has not changed. The political elite constitutes its most hideous façade. Politics has become the only game in town due to the opportunity it provides for the blatant looting of public resources.

“The bleeding of the national economy by public officials is aggravated by expenditure on public office holders and sundry appendages. By some estimates, over 70 percent of national income is expended on recurrent expenditure to the detriment of capital expenditure. In Nigeria, we speak painfully of stolen billions.”