• Leaders should work hard to fulfil campaign promises
• Masses, media should hold the leaders accountable”
By Vivian Onyebukwa
Mr Emeka Anozie is the acting National Coordinator, Institute of Transformation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership. Anozie is a human rights activist and a social commentator. In this interview, he bared his mind on the state of the nation, highlighting the challenges even as he stated the way forward.
What are road blocks to strong democracy in Nigeria at all levels of the governance?
Without looking further, the blocks to vibrant democracy are homologous. They include inability for our votes counting as sections of the citizens are still being cajoled to sell their votes. There is also problem of disfranchisement, that is, where some people are prevented from voting for their choice of candidates with bigotry tribal mentality. There is also problem of ballot snatching for election rigging. The issue of money politics is another thing which is denying opportunity to the right people for various leadership positions to contest to lead. Not making independent candidate a reality, is another impediment to a vibrant democracy. My ex-boss Otunba TOS Benson, first Parliamentarian and first Federal Minister of Information of blessed memory, was the first politician to experiment independent candidacy in the first republic when he was having issue with his political party failing to adopt him for second term. He won, and so why is it still illegal now?
Another impediment is imposition of candidates by political godfathers at the primary level without allowing input. Again, is poverty making some people to sell their votes? Every successful leadership is merely addressing poverty via lip service. No concrete arrangements and neither any commitments to provide social security to unemployed citizens, or means to encourage more citizens to embrace entrepreneurship, which will not only end poverty and hunger, but insecurity as well. If the youth have something doing, will they have time to engage in prostitution, unknown gunmen, and political thuggery?
Lack of commitment to fight corruption is another impediment to a vibrant democracy as with commitment against corrupt leaders, you would not find yahoo yahoo boy running for political office.
There is also the need for a fully Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), so that the party in power would not be able to influence the electoral authorities in their favour at every election to produce free and fair election.
All of these are blocks to having a vibrant democracy in Nigeria. If addressed, we will begin to see competent and committed leaders. Promise and fail politics will fizzle out, as the political class will start to deliver what they promised to the people and not promising us bread and coming to give us stones.
Some say that Nigeria has a civilian dictatorship, not a civilian democracy. What is your take on this?
The thing is trying to force a policy on the people without subject to debate through our national and states assembly, which is the norm with the military. Good that the tax reform is still undergoing debate for approval or not, and that is the beauty of democracy. Democratically, we are still maturing coming from our military experience. That is why it’s like we’re in a civilian dictatorship, especially where people are still unable to freely elect their leaders amidst candidates’ imposition. Our leaders just say juicy things, get the power and forget about their promises to the people during campaigns. It cannot be said that we’re in a democracy while trying to prevent the citizens from checking your excesses as their leader. In a democracy, elected leaders are servants of the people, but sadly, after election, our political class start to behave like some sort of demigods to be served, giving themselves huge salaries and some incentives, while the citizens are neglected. They forget that the people remain their security if they are well taken care of. If our leaders start to perform and do well, they don’t need any retinue of security aides, but unfortunately that’s not the case as they have to protect themselves from kidnappers, unknown gunmen, bandits and terrorists and no police to protect the citizens. This is the reason why terrorists continue to kill innocent people as it’s happening in some parts of the country. As we fought the military for democracy, we also need to fight our present leaders to make our democracy mature by standing up against their dictatorial tendencies.
Do we need restructuring in any form in this country?
If the present government can restructure for true federalism, why not? We also need to restructure in such a way that states that contribute to the development of the nation with their resources are compensated, going by derivation term which I don’t know if it’s been implemented, because this has always been talked about by concerned Nigerians each time the issue of restructuring comes up. It’s unacceptable for states contributing to national economic development with their resources, to continue to remain undeveloped with deficiency in economic and infrastructural development. Another cause of deficiency in infrastructure and economy is massive corruption with docility among the citizens in questioning their leaders, from the executive to local government on how they spent their allocations. To this end, I want to commend SERAP in this regard for always being on guard to challenge our leaders for good governance and which of course some of our leaders are not always comfortable with. But they have no choice than give us good governance, otherwise concerned citizens will not stop criticizing them and making demands. We also need restructuring to agree on exact amount to pay political office holders to be able to have enough to give to the people good governance and let peace reign. There is also the need to restructure to make Nigeria a more productive country, to create more jobs opportunity and in turn reduce social vices and insecurity. It’s a shame that we are still not self-reliant in creating our own factories to produce products we can use here as we virtually still import everything even to the food we eat, and existing factories are parking up because they can no longer cope with cost of production. If problems affecting agriculture can be well addressed, ranging from protecting farmers from terrorists and giving lands out to people or youths that wish to embrace agriculture as occupation, we are on course for massive food production that we don’t need to be crying for hunger as it’s now with subsidy gone. I am happy that Nigerians in teh Diaspora do export Nigeria’s food abroad for their consumption. But we can still do more than that.
Why do you think Nigerian youth engage in heinous crimes and other social vices?
The system is no longer what it used to be that even some parents now aid and support their children doing yahoo yahoo and prostitution. What about human and drug trafficking, and the rest? It’s no longer news that some parents also assist their children to cheat in exams. Not quite long, a father was caught trying to write Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, exam (JAMB) for his daughter. Again, the poverty level in the country is promoting immorality. As an evangelist or pastor, do you preach to a hungry person to repent, or look for how to give the person food first? Government and society at large need to come together to address the massive poverty in the land and essentially, poor out of school children and give social security to the unemployed and you would see insecurity reduced. Also there’s the need to encourage positive youths to help discourage bad venture of negativity in youth to help not only to reduce social vices but eradicate same.
Have the parents failed?
Of course, some parents are failing in their responsibility to properly nurture their children to the point that some parents no longer ask their children questions how they came about sudden wealth, as yahoo yahoo boys are becoming more common now even though Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), have been arresting some of them. Some time ago, I read where a father disowned his child who came home with a vehicle and trying to give his father some huge sum of money, but couldn’t explain how his sudden wealth came about. How many parents can still do that now with the rate of poverty? Even some of our leaders are involved in having unexplained sudden wealth through corruption that they are becoming stupendously rich to the point that they are buying jets with private businesses, property all over the places both here and overseas.
How do you think the government can move this country forward?
I think the country can get better moving to expected Eldorado for a better Nigeria if our leaders always stick to their promises during campaigns. You cannot promise the people bread and coming back to give them stones.
It could get better too if the rest of us are doing our bit to continue to hold our leaders to account for responsive and responsible leadership and which is part of what you and me are doing now with this interview. In other words, the journalists and the entire civil society in the nation owe it a duty to ensure that our leaders are accountable for their actions and inactions. Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), is presently the vibrant civil society group in that regard as far as I am concerned, even in the face of intimidation. If all of us don’t give up like this and churning ethnicity biases without trying to defend any political or ethnic class, I see a better Nigeria with one love and unity.
What is your advice to the youths?
Youth should get transformed by churning all social vices as our future leaders because no matter how we want to look at it, old ones shall pass away even though they continue to impose themselves on us so that we can have a better, fruitful nation to the benefit of all of us as citizens and our compatriots.
