June 12: 29 Years After – Interrogating Nigeria’s Democracy in the Fourth Republic, the Osun Perspective
By Professor Sola Akinrinade
Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
Being the text of a Public Lecture delivered on the occasion of the 2022 Democracy Day Celebration in Osun State, June 12, 2022, at Aurora Events Centre, Osogbo.
Protocol
The Special Guest of Honour, His Excellency, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola, Governor of Osun State
The Royal Father of the Day, His Royal Majesty, Oba Omowonuola Oyeyode Oyesosin, the Ogiyan of Ejigbo
The Chairman of today’s occasion, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, Senior Advocate of Nigeria
The Discussant, Professor Wasiu Ademola Oyedokun-Alli
Distinguished Guests
Members of the Media
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
Let me begin by appreciating the leadership of the State and the organisers of this programme for the privilege of standing before this august audience to share my thoughts on a matter that affects all of us here and the future generations. It is a thing of delight because I believe, among those seated here are some of the founding fathers of the State and other important stakeholders who must be concerned about the state of democracy and democratic practice in our dear country.
I have been asked to speak on the subject of “June 12, 29 Years After – Interrogating Nigeria’s Democracy in the Fourth Republic, the Osun Perspective.” Informally, I was also advised to speak for just 30 minutes and to try to put in a few sentences in Yoruba. I will try to do the two, but I cannot guarantee success in either.
By 2023, Nigeria would be marking 24 years of uninterrupted civilian rule; some, understandably, will call it “civilian misrule”. I am being careful in my choice of words here because it is possible to mistake civilian rule for democratic governance. It is generally acknowledged that the popular struggle to actualize the June 12 mandate, from June 1993 to 1999, facilitated the emergence of the current democratic dispensation in the country. It is thus, appropriate to salute all those in the vanguard of that struggle, many of whom are seated here.
On Wednesday, June 6, 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari, personally signed a press statement that announced the decision of the Government that June 12 every year shall be celebrated as Democracy Day. In the 18 years before, Nigerians had been celebrating May 29 as Democracy Day, being the date that a second civilian administration was inaugurated in the country after several years of military rule. However, in the view of Nigerians, June 12, 1993, was far more symbolic of the struggle for the actualization of democracy than May 29. This perspective had informed the decision of the Government of Osun State, along with a few others in the South West, to commence the celebration of Democracy Day on June 12, much earlier than the Federal Government saw the light.
In one of the most populist actions of the Government, not only was June 12 declared to be the day for celebrating Democracy Day nationally with a public holiday attached to it, but the Government also announced the post-humous conferment of the highest honour in the land, the GCFR, to the presumed winner of the June 12 elections, Bashorun MKO Abiola, and the GCON to Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, Chief Abiola’s running mate in that election. The Government also announced the post-humous award of the GCON to Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, the tireless fighter for human rights and the actualization of the June 12 1993 election result.
Nationally, this year’s commemoration of the Democracy Day is the fifth such celebration, and it is coming just a few days after the 23rd anniversary of the restoration of democratic rule in the country. Due to the apparently long period of rule by civilians, it is possible for us to begin to pat ourselves on the back that we have done well, and that democratic rule is on course in the country.
Indeed, the fact that we have managed to keep the military away from Aso Rock and from State Government Houses, for 23 years and counting is worth celebrating. There have been developments over the past 23 years that, had they transpired during the days of military rule, would have occasioned a series of military coup d’états. The current state of security (or, more appropriately, insecurity), would have provided sufficient excuse for gun totting military adventurers to interrupt our news at dawn with the messianic martial music announcing another forcible change of government. The mass disaffection with the state of the economy would easily have justified intervention by the military in times past. Yet, the men in military uniforms have been kept at bay.
Yes, we should pat ourselves on the back for even this little achievement, which apparently, is not little after all. But then, we should pause for reflection and ask the question, “Is Nigeria democratic or practicing democracy?” Can we honestly affirm that the state of the nation today and the state of democratic practice is what those put their lives on the line during the NADECO struggle expected to see?
I propose to answer this question in a very simple way that will relate to our lived experiences as Nigerians and as citizens of Osun State. If we really want to know if what we are practicing is democracy, the logical starting point is to ask and answer the question, “What is Democracy?” We can then interrogate whether or not Nigeria has been practicing democracy during the last 23 years.
I know most people seated here have their understanding of what democracy is, but I like to take the matter beyond the subjective and personalized realm to what we can all relate to, in a simplified but not necessarily simplistic way.
The Oxford Languages online dictionary defines democracy as, “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines the phenomenon as “government by the people especially rule of the majority.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary goes further to describe democracy as “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Democracy is a system of government in which laws, policies, leadership, and major undertakings of a state or other polity are directly or indirectly decided by the “people,” a group historically constituted by only a minority of the population (e.g., all free adult males in ancient Athens or all sufficiently propertied adult males in 19th-century Britain) but generally understood since the mid-20th century to include all (or nearly all) adult citizens.”
In the Manual for Human Rights Education with Young People, the Council of Europe opines that it is sometimes easier to understand democracy by describing what it is not rather than explaining what it is. The Council thus states, “Democracy … is not autocracy or dictatorship, where one person rules; and it is not oligarchy, where a small segment of society rules. Properly understood, democracy should not even be “rule of the majority”, if that means that minorities’ interests are ignored completely. A democracy, at least in theory, is government on behalf of all the people, according to their “will”.”
A common trend in all the definitions of democracy is the emphasis on “the people” as the governor and as the governed, as well as being the beneficiaries of democratic practice. When we were in Primary School, we were taught a simple definition of democracy in our Civics Class, which reads like something like this: “Democracy is Government of the People, by the People, for the People.” As simple as this statement is, it contains certain profound truths embedded in all the definitions cited above, elements of which if interrogated, will enable us to answer the question: Is Nigeria practicing democracy or, is Nigeria a democratic country?
First, let us consider Democracy as a Government of the People. If democracy is government of the people, is Nigeria really a democracy given democratic practice in the country over the past 23 years? The opening paragraph of the 1999 Constitution declares, “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Having firmly and solemnly resolved, to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God… for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people, do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution:…”
These flowery phrases presuppose that the fundamental basis of governance of the country, the Constitution, is an acceptable document to all. The question is, does the present 1999 Constitution truly reflect the will and needs of the society being governed through its instrumentality? A simple interrogation of these opening sentences of the Constitution will raise questions about the basis of our coexistence as a nation. If indeed, we have firmly and solemnly resolved to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation, how do we explain the numerous separatist agitations in virtually all geographical parts of the country?
The deadly quest of the Boko Haram insurgents, backed up in recent years by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), to seek the establishment of a caliphate outside the sovereign Federal Republic of Nigeria, is one big proof of the lie that we call a Constitution. The continuing agitation for a Biafra nation and the agitation for a Yoruba Nation cast doubts on the so-called resolve “to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation.” The indivisible or indissoluble nature of the union has been contested by many who point to the several examples of similar federations in other parts of the world that have metamorphosed into different countries. If we are going to make a case for perpetual indivisibility of the Nigerian Federation, then reason must be found for the citizens to believe in it. Emotional platitudes such as those expressed in the 1999 Constitution cannot guarantee indissolubility if the citizens do not embrace the idea wholeheartedly.
Yes, Section 14(2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution declares that “sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority”, and Section 14(2)(c) states that “the participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.” The truth is that the manner of the adoption of the 1999 Constitution and the feeble and many times selfish attempts at its amendment by different sessions of the National Assembly, make nonsense of the claim that we have a government “of the people.” The collection of handpicked representatives of the military to serve as a pseudo-Constituent Assembly to come up with a Constitution, in a process in which the drivers established too many no-go areas covering critical issues of our existence, cannot be said to the people of Nigeria resolving to give ourselves a Constitution.
I have heard the argument, a couple of times, that in the circumstances of the 1998-1999 transition, the 1999 Constitution is the best we could have had. This may be true; but the circumstances of 1998/99 do not in any way explain the failure of subsequent sessions of the National Assembly to work together to give us a people-oriented constitution, one which the people could easily identify as being in their interest and an identity we can all embrace.
Arsene Wenger, the legendary Manager of Arsenal Football Club of England once said, “A club is about identity. Identity is about values and values are about the people who carry these values. A club is first an identity and has knowledge that is transferred from generation to generation.” We can replace the word “club” in this statement with “country”. With developments in recent years, Nigeria today is gradually descending into a country without identity and without values to which all its people subscribe. The first step in having a democracy of government of the people would be setting motion the process of giving us a bottom-up, people driven constitution that will reflect collectively agreed values, create an identity which we all can defend, and define acceptable terms of cohabitation to which we all subscribe.
The truth is, even with our battered state of the nation and its dented image, most of the few privileged Nigerians who have the opportunity of traveling abroad, are still proud of their country when outside the country. Forget the occasional humiliation at immigration desks when you submit the green passport, many of us are still proudly Nigerian. This sentiment could be built upon when we agree on acceptable terms of our co-existence through the adoption of a people-based constitution.
From our discussion so far, we can easily infer that our current democratic practice is not a government of the people. Is it then a government by the people? Let us go back to the dictionary definitions of democracy. The Oxford Languages dictionary defines democracy as “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “government by the people especially rule of the majority,” and “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”
There is no democratic system in the world in which every citizen votes; indeed, it could be added that there is nowhere in the world where every eligible voter votes in an election. Eligibility to vote or be voted for is usually defined in a nation’s Constitution.
In practicing democracies, elections are the instruments for determining popular preferences for purpose of representation. The question is, do Nigerian elections produce democratic outcomes? The new Electoral Act is generally acknowledged as being a great improvement on its predecessors in terms of the ability to guarantee acceptable results. However, it is not the provisions of the law that matters but the extent to which the players respect the intent of the law and assure that the outcome reflects true popular will. In terms of the outcome of electoral contests being the reflection of popular will, we still have a lot of work to do as a people.
Let us consider one or two aspects of our electoral practice to demonstrate the poor capacity of the electoral system as it currently is, to deliver on the mandate of the people. If the principle of being able to vote and be voted for is the hallmark of electoral systems, then we are far from being a democracy. In theory, all qualified adults can vote and be voted for, but is this the case? In a situation where independent candidacy is not permitted by law, all candidates for elections are candidates of one political party or the other. The emergence of a candidate as a party’s flag bearer in any election is a process that excludes most Nigerians. When the two major political parties pegged the cost of obtaining their nomination forms for the presidential election at forty million and one hundred million Naira respectively, it is clear that the parties do not have in mind the regular people of this country. At the gubernatorial level, I do not know of many Nigerians who can cough out fifty million Naira for nomination and expression of interest. This is an area the Electoral Act needs to take another look in terms of pegging the cost of nomination forms. And, the FIRS may wish to enquire how much tax were paid by all the candidates who participated in the presidential primaries and those who claimed to have bought the forms for them, including forms purchased for hesitant candidates.
Yes, the Presidency may not be a position for every Tom, Dick and Harry, but we cannot blame the layman who asks for the motivation for an individual to spend One Hundred Million Naira to apply for a job that pays a total gross salary of less than a hundred million Naira over a four-year period? Obviously, it cannot be the salary. Or, could it be, as Tola Adeniyi concluded, that what was being paid for was the access ticket for looting the treasury? The excessive monetization of the process of selecting candidates and the campaigns themselves invariably exclude the average Nigerian from the process.
Yes, the electoral system operates on the basis of representation, whereby electors make a choice. But then, what choice does the average elector have? Given that under the Nigerian system, we vote for parties and not for candidates, our choices are limited to only those presented to us by the dominant parties. In several instances, our parties have presented the electorate with candidates for office who patently lack the capacity to govern at the level of government being desired or perform the functions associated with that office. In addition, the conduct of many elected officials upon assuming office demonstrate the extent to which they disregard the expressed preferences of the people. Unfortunately, as of now, the constitutional provisions for the recall of elected officials who have lost the confidence of their constituencies have never been fully deployed.
But I digress. Still on the electoral system operating on the basis of representation, the question to ask here is, “Who owns the vote recorded by the party and/or candidate in an election?” While the electoral law provides that votes are for parties and not for candidates, a plausible case could be made that my choice of party in a particular election could be the outcome of my preference for a particular candidate that I perceive as representing my interest; I could easily have voted for another party if my preferred candidate is the flagbearer.
Let us try to put some names and faces to this argument. When Godwin Obaseki was denied the APC flag in the Edo State governorship election, he won his second term election on the platform of the PDP, meaning the votes won previously were most probably for him, and not for the party. In a curious irony, his opponent in the election was the losing PDP candidate in the previous election who now carried the flag for the APC. The implication here is that the people voted for the candidate and not the party. A similar scenario played out in Benue State, where Samuel Ortom was denied the APC flag in his second term bid, crossed to the PDP and won the election for his new party. Thus, in these two cases, while, according to the law, the electors voted for the party, the voters were actually following the candidates.
But there is another side to the argument on the ownership of the vote in view of the position of the law that votes are for the party not the candidate. Unless the party is bedevilled by internal division, when an elected official in the State or National Assembly crosses to another party, then, he or she must vacate his or her seat. In essence, it is illegal – and immoral – for an elected official to cross carpet to another party, because such defector would be depriving his/her party and constituents of the fruit of their electoral victory.
The only reason for these confusing scenarios is that many of our elected officials have been seeking every opportunity to exploit the system, play the game by manipulating the rule with no obvious interest of the people at heart. Defection and change of parties are not based on any ideological preference but whose side the bread gets buttered better. And the people obviously know that their interests have no bearing whatsoever on the conduct of their elected officials and thus seek to take maximum advantage of the quadrennial charade that we call elections by engaging in vote marketing to the highest bidders in each election without as much respect for party or candidate’s policies or programmes.
The recent presidential primaries have been described as obscenely monetized by observers and even some of the participants themselves, but the deeper worry for me is that there was no expression of plans and programmes the candidates intend to implement in office while seeking for the votes of the delegates. The hope is that the next eight months leading to the presidential election proper will feature proper articulation of the programmes of the candidates, that will enable voters to make informed choices, and that the promises made would not remain on paper upon assumption of office.
In essence, if properly interrogated, when the parameter of government by the people is considered in measuring our conformity to democratic practice, we still have a long way to go as a country.
Before I conclude this presentation, we should interrogate the third critical component of the definition of democracy: government for the people. It is agreed that democratic practice is expected to benefit the people, that is, the citizens must experience and enjoy practical dividends from the democratic governance. One expression that has found its way into the national political lexicon in recent years is the phrase, “dividends of democracy.” Apart from projects directly executed by the Executive, one feature of the efforts of our political leaders in the Fourth Republic is the phenomenon called “Constituency Projects,” or its more appropriate title, the Zonal Intervention Projects.
In an ideal situation, Zonal Intervention Projects are veritable instruments for delivering benefits to the people. Going by different nomenclatures in different climes, mobilising for inclusion of development projects in national and state or regional budgets by elected representatives is a feature of democratic practice in several parts of the world. So, constituency projects are not as illegal as some would want to portray them. In every democratic system, politicians make electoral promises to bring development to their people. To achieve this, certain specific projects are proposed, budgeted and appropriated for the constituency of each legislator. The funds for these projects are, however, domiciled with relevant MDAs for their implementation, which must go through the regular statutory procurement process. In the period up to 2019, an estimated Two Trillion Naira was budgeted for such projects. Given the quantum of funds so far expended on these projects, the development profile of several communities in the country should have improved significantly, but we all know the truth that this is far from the case.
Not long after Constituency Projects became a feature of our economic and political life, complaints began to emerge increasingly by citizens regarding shoddy completion, non-completion, or outright non-execution of constituency projects despite huge budgetary releases by Government. Reports began to emerge that constituency projects are used as a conduit for diversion and misappropriation of public funds through the implementing MDAs. This was the basis of the initiative of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, to embark on tracking of all funded constituency projects in order to ensure proper and transparent execution. The Constituency Projects Tracking Group (CPTG) was launched on 2nd April 2019 to track constituency projects’ implementation and performance from 2015 to 2018. Phase I of the initiative was completed a few months after and, in the subsequent months, Phases II and III have been carried out. Osun was one of the 12 states selected for the first phase of the initiative, with 22 projects tracked in the State.
The findings of the CPTG make for worrisome reading as, what would have truly made our democracy a government for the people, one in which people would have truly experienced the benefits of democratic governance was severely compromised in the implementation. Rampant were duplications of contracts of same description, same narrative, same amount and same location awarded by the same agency. This was being done by legislators in order to bring the total amount allocated to individual legislators within the approval threshold of the executing agency so as to avoid ministerial tender processes.
One conduit for siphoning public funds were the so-called Capacity Building and Empowerment Project. These entail training, supplies and distribution of varieties of implements and tools such as motorcycles, tricycles, sewing machines, grinding machines, etc. to constituents, to empower them to own and operate their own businesses. In some cases, these include cash grants. Such projects became a conduit for embezzling public funds by sponsoring legislators and the executing agency as they are difficult to track and verify due to their “soft” nature.
In some instances, the constituency projects embedded in certain MDAs have bigger budgetary provisions than the core mandate of such MDAs. For instance, in SMEDAN (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency), in 2015, while total mandate allocation was N1,592,323,599.00, Constituency projects allocation was N5,814,369,579; 95% of these constituency projects allocations were for Empowerment and Capacity Building projects, projects that are typically difficult to track. In 2016, this appropriation jumped to N11,120,099,958, or 741% of SMEDAN’s mandate budget with Empowerment and Capacity building projects taking a whopping 99% of the amount.
In other instances, the size of the implementing MDAs is such that it could hardly absorb the funds being allocated to it for implementation, and in other cases, MDAs are allocated projects that fall neither into their scope of mandate or their geographical location. Most of the companies used belong directly or indirectly to the sponsoring legislator or the sponsoring legislator has a substantial interest in them, one way or another. In some instances, projects were implemented by personal staff or family members of legislators themselves, while a few projects were found sited on the private property of sponsoring legislators, with some converting items supplied under the project to personal use. A supposed constituency borehole was sited in the private residence of the brother of the legislator. While all of this is unethical, the ethical indiscretion would have been mitigated if the projects were successfully carried and the benefits delivered to the people.
It is also important to note that most of the constituency projects have no bearing to perceived needs of the people of the host constituency. The CPTG report revealed the absence of knowledge on the part of the citizenry of any provision for constituency projects for their communities. Members of the communities do not often know what project is appropriated for and to be sited in their communities which would have empowered them to follow the money and track the project. This is why it was possible for some legislators to pass off projects implemented under the Constituency Projects initiatives as having been sponsored from their personal pockets.
Happily, in the report covering the first phase of the tracking initiative, Osun State was spared most of these excesses perpetrated in the name of Constituency Projects. In the major infraction reported in Phase I of the CPTG Report, the Mini Water Projects at Ife-Odan and Ila-Orangun in Osun State were over-invoiced to the tune of N28, 358, 437. 91; however, the amount involved has been recovered from the sponsor. But should this have happened in the first instance?
Thus, when a State is fortunate to have a Governor and Government with the right attributes and observable records of performance in delivering development projects that touch on the lives of the people directly, all stakeholders must do everything possible to embrace such individuals and ensure that the gains are not lost through careless decision making at the polls. On Tuesday, 31 May 2022, I travelled to Ogbomoso through Ejigbo; I was pleasantly surprised that the Ara-Ojo-Ejigbo road had been reconstructed without a single pothole. I had a bet with my senior brother who was traveling with me that it was not possible not to have a pothole on the road. I lost the bet. Fortunately, it did not involve money! I also noticed that construction work had started on the township roads in Ejigbo itself. Similarly, the road from Moro passing through my town, Yakooyo, to Ashipa-Ife-Ibadan expressway has been reconstructed. I was told that the Governor was accused of playing politics by reconstructing the roads. If the politics is delivering development to our communities as it is obviously being done, Mr. Governor, kindly keep playing politics and be improving our living conditions in the process. A political process that does not deliver palpable benefits to the people is not worth the name.
Your Excellency, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, let me try and conclude.
Over the past several years, there have been strident calls for restructuring of the federation with a view to achieving what is tagged true federalism. At the root of these calls is the popular dissatisfaction with the quality of life of the citizens in the country. The question we may wish to ask is, what are the expectations from a restructured federation? A restructured federation is expected to bring governance closer to the people with the consequent improvement in quality of life. A restructured federation will permit regions to develop at their own pace as experienced during the First Republic and afford greater accountability. Expectedly, there would be development of local resources to meet local needs.
The truth is, if our current democratic system has delivered good governance, I am fairly certain that the demand for restructuring would have been a muffled sound. We only need to reflect on the experience of Eastern European countries including the defunct Soviet Union or the Commonwealth of Independent States, to appreciate the fact that the dissolution of large federations into ethnically cohesive units does not necessarily translate to good governance. Improved quality of life is not dependent on a restructured system. Eradication or minimisation of corruption does not depend on regionalism. There are embarrassing reports of the pervasiveness of corruption in the different regions of the country during the First Republic.
Yes, a major problem of our current democratic system is the overwhelming dominance of governance by the federal government that made capture of power at the federal level such an attractive proposition. That is what explains the penchant of elected leaders to defect from the party on which platform they were elected to office to another party where they expect benefits to accrue to them personally such as dropping corruption charges against them or platform to contest for higher or different elective office without as much giving the slightest consideration to the opinion or perspective of their constituents at any level.
In order to benefit from democratic practice as a country, we need to curb the cost of governance. The excessive cost of governance is impacting severely on our capacity for national development. The excessive number of legislators, failure to restructure the civil and public service, massive corruption at every level of governance, the monumental corruption in the oil industry corruption, etc. are all pointers to a sick society. We cannot and should not wait for restructuring to take place before we tackle these problems. How do we explain the unenviable record of being the only member of OPEC that is importing petrol? What of the inexplicable multiplication of the cost of fuel subsidy, and the endless turn around maintenance of our non-functional refineries, with staff collecting salaries in billions annually without producing a drop of petrol?
Let me come nearer home. The restructuring song has been most strident in the southeast and southwest where many, if not most believe that giving more powers to the federating units over their own affairs would augur well for developments in the component regions, particularly in our part of the country. Many point to the progress made with development of infrastructure during the immediate pre-independence period and the First Republic. The truth is, the restructuring of this country will not take place anytime soon but then development should not wait. A fundamental requirement for restructuring to take place is the Constitution itself which provides the canons and pillars of our federal system and structure. To change the mindset of those holding the power to effect change, we need to ensure the election of individuals who can make a difference if entrusted with power. Yet, in the southwest we are so apathetic when it comes to exercising our civic duties. Recorded voting patterns confirm a much higher level of participation in elections in the Northwest and North-eastern parts of the country, the northeast despite the massive scale of insurgency taking place there. Voter registration figures confirm a higher level of registration in the North, while the statistics of uncollected voters cards reveal higher levels of uncollected cards in the southwest and southeast. Of the 84,004,084, registered voters in 2019, 24% or 20,158,100 were from the Northwest; the Southwest recorded 19.39% or 16,292,212 voters. The North Central and North East recorded 15.91% (or 13,366,070) and 13.44% (or 11,289,293) respectively. As we have been told several times, there are no polling booths in the social media and INEC would not count prayer points. We are more active on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook than in the polling booths. Until we take awareness levels out of the social media to polling booths, we will continue to lament unfair concentration of power in those parts of the country where the citizens mobilise voters to exercise the franchise. If electoral votes could be mobilised in massive numbers as were regularly done for BB Naija, the electoral fortunes of this part of the country would witness massive shift.
Senator Shehu Sani of Kaduna State recently said that a society cannot have credible and honourable leaders when the process that led to their emergence is corrupt and decadent. We have continued to recycle supposedly corrupt politicians whose sins are forgiven once they switch to the politically correct side. Many individuals with allegations of corruption hanging around their necks are strutting the political space with aplomb and openly acting as kingmakers determining the political destinies of their states and constituencies. Many continue to be appointed to high offices of state, some requiring approval by the Senate and clearance from the security but not anti-corruption agencies. Our Senate and Houses of Assembly in States should establish their positions as true and authentic legislative check on the executive rather than doing the bidding of the executive without thinking through the implications. We need to reach a point where we have enough people of conscience to say, No, this is not right, this cannot go: this far and no more. The gatekeepers in the system should be alive to their duties if we are to have a democratic system that serves the purpose of the people and not simply that of the political elite.
Ultimately, the most important gatekeepers in a democratic system should be the people themselves, the supposed beneficiaries of good governance. If our democracy is going to be a government for the people, then the people must learn to engage more with their leaders beyond asking for pittance in exchange for votes, and asking their leaders to provide funds for them to meet needs that are best provided by the State. Selection of constituency projects should not be left to the whims of the legislator but should be an inclusive process involving town hall meetings and consultations with the people. When the people are involved in determining what comes to them, it would be easier to assume ownership and a legislator cannot then parade publicly funded projects as their own personal contributions to the community.
As we approach the 2022 governorship elections in Osun State and national elections in 2023, we as a people must decide what we want for ourselves, which should be what is in our best interests. We must begin with our State because, if we can get it right here, there is the possibility of impacting on developments in other parts of the country. I believe we can get it right if we make up our minds that things cannot continue to go on the way they have always been.
Your Excellency, distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, let me rest my case here. I know I have spoken for more than 30 minutes, and I do hope I am forgiven. I thank you all for your attention.
Professor Sola Akinrinade, FNAL, FHSN, fspsp
Department of History
Obafemi Awolowo University
Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
June 12, 2022
