12 years on: Celebrating another Democracy Day

President Goodluck Jonathan’s supporters expect nothing less from any critic, except a way forward from the present mess the country finds itself. From the social networking pages to daily conversations, the subject is the same, Nigeria is in crises, and repeating that here is even an overstatement. Our twelve years of democracy can be described as one of the best chances the nation had to join the likes of China, South Africa, the Asian Tigers and Brazil as one of the leading economies of the world. However, that chance was squandered by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, described by many analysts as the worst thing that ever happened to Nigeria in its modern history. Few achievements were recorded during his tenure which was overshadowed by his dismal failure. We can rightly say that the leadership failure recorded in these years in terms of corruption, open stealing of public funds and electoral rigging etc., have overshadowed the little achievements.

His twelve years of rule can be said to be a 12 years of wastage of Nation’s resources. He had all what is needed; the experience, the resources, best brains at his disposal to develop Nigeria, but alas, when he was forced to leave by May 29, 2007, Obasanjo left Nigeria with less than 2000MW of electricity with record history of the worst leader to have ever lead Nigeria. Apart from inability of his government to provide quality infrastructure for its citizens, unemployment reached unprecedented level. Recent statistics showed that unemployment stood between 65 – 75% and the graduate turn-over stood between 600,000 - 1 million every year talk less of the pool of uneducated, unemployed youth that always become nuisance and a ready recruits for communal, ethnic or religious violence. His eight year rule added nothing to majority of families but misery.

As he was leaving, Obasanjo handed the country to Mallam Umaru Musa ‘Yar’adua, in what many analysts believed was a deliberate attempt to rule the country through the back door, because of his failure to actualize his third term agenda. ‘Yar’adua’s live was cut short by protracted illness, and when he was leaving nothing much change.

Then Jonathan succeeded him. Today, Jonathan is the democratically elected President of Nigeria. How he came to power was a subject for another day. As usual, as people who want to see a better Nigeria, we feel we should not stop talking about Nigeria and its problems, calling the attention of those who landed us into this mess to change their ways, to avoid witnessing the horrors we see in many countries where bad governance becomes the norm.

Our country is a lucky one, endowed with diverse and scores of resources - both human and material. However, in the last 12 years we witnessed an unprecedented gross mismanagement, profligate spending, graft and adverse policies - sometimes misplaced priorities from our political leaders. Our leaders, both at the national and states level failed to optimally utilize these resources on one hand and on the other the resources were not been adequately channelled to profitable investments to bring about maximum economic benefits. As a result of these, what we have today is a series of economic problem ranging from poverty, unemployment, corruption, nepotism and the rise in ethnic and sectional nationalism inimical to the development of a nation like ours. We believe that the consequences of these accumulated problems and frustration is what led to the violence in the aftermath of the Presidential elections in the North.

Democracy is a system which is supposedly considered an answer to bad governance, corruption, nepotism and injustices. But the irresponsibility displayed by our politicians in the last 12 years has reached an unprecedented level to make one wonders what kind of democracy is this? In the last 12 years alone Nigeria receives over 36 trillion naira from oil revenue with nothing to show for it in terms of infrastructural and human development. These monies, shared between the three tiers of government was either squandered or pilfered by those vested with the responsibility of harnessing these resources for the nation’s development. However, every year we found ourselves listening to monotonous speeches, to mark democracy day. For how long?

Available statistics show that poverty in Nigeria remained pervasive with the North-East zone having the highest Human Poverty Index (HPI) rate of 48.90; followed by North-West with 44.15, North-Central with 34.65. The recent Human Development Index (HDI) of 2008-2009 reveals that Human Development Index value (the HDI value) in the North Central is 0.490, North West 0.42, North East 0.332. The other region of the South is better off according to the report with the South West having 21.50 and with HDI of 0.523, South East 0.471 and South-South 0.573.

We cannot, as a nation, continue celebrating emptiness with these horrific figures and statistics. In 2007 when they came to office, GEJ and UMY came with their 7-point agenda, which by 2009 was hanging nowhere and nothing tangible can be said to have been achieved. No one was able to explain to the nation what happened to the agendas. Why can’t Jonathan go back and reconsider these agendas and see what should be done about them? Why can’t he revisit the vision 2020:20 document and pursuit it vigorously to see where he will take the country before 2015.

The future of our country and the future of generation yet to come depend on the decision we take now, either as individuals or collectively to change our ways of doing things. We have to ensure, as Nigerians, that the true aspirations and yearning of people determines how leadership at all levels of governance behaves. The media has a responsibility here in ensuring not only the President, but all elective representatives and the political elites behave responsibly. The media is responsible for setting our development agendas and keep the government on its feet and ensure the promises made during campaign of provisions for quality education, energy (the 10,000MW promise), poverty alleviation, health and resuscitating of the agricultural sector are met.

The government, on its part have to address youth unemployment by reinventing a system that can empower the youth to meet the changing needs of the economy, market and the expectation of the society through provision of quality education from primary up to our tertiary institutions. It is the opinion of this writer that if government is serious about addressing unemployment problem for instance, then serious measures needs to be taken. We keep emphasizing anytime that unemployment and poverty can never be solved by distributing motorcycles to party loyalists or dashing them money, which are all short term strategies. The government has to strengthen agencies like the National Directorate of Employment, which has the capacity to offer millions of Nigerians the skills and knowledge to be self employed and self-reliant.

It is up to President Jonathan to decide which path he wants to take. Would he like to be like his political mentor Obasanjo? If he takes that path, we want to remind him that Nigeria is at the brink, and the nation will never forgive him for that. We need is a ‘breath of fresh air’ he promised us during his campaign and see a new Nigeria built on solid foundation of good governance, accountability and transparency. It is then that we will have the cause to celebrate democracy day, and it is only then that the day will be meaningful to all Nigerians.