By Ambassador Usman Sarki
The consciousness of our being is the ultimate driver of change and progress in human societies. This sense of being “here” in the present, is what propels us to experiment and do things for posterity. Essentially, therefore, government is part of this aspect of our being that recognises the necessity of organising human societies towards creating harmonious relationships based on reciprocal expectations of privileges accruing from the discharge of responsibilities by each and every member of the community.
It is this sense of “community” that makes government purposeful and of utilitarian value, and also necessary in keeping intact the human societies. The expectations of rights and privileges alone without the reciprocal balancing of such demands with responsibilities would automatically mean a state of chaos, anarchy and disassembling of the order of civil society. The enjoyment of rights, the exercise of responsibilities and the derivation of privileges there-of, make for achieving the appropriate balance in a democratic dispensation.
This is the background to this essay which is on the viability of democracy in Nigeria, or its ultimate perdition. For democracy to survive and even thrive in Nigeria, abstraction of the principles of this form of government alone, and their negation in practice, would be tantamount to negligence and carelessness in securing the future of civil government in the country. The manning of the institutions of state, making of laws and adoption of policies are mundane parts of governance that can be discharged by both democratic and non-democratic systems alike.
What matter however, are the principles and ethics behind the different forms of government, and the relationships that subsist between these forms of government and the populace. Democratic governance at least in principle and concept, is based on the consent of the people to be ruled by their elected representatives who make laws on their behalf. This idea of representation is therefore, central or key to the determination of the nature or type of democracy that is in existence in a place at any given time. Representation however, is merely an ideal which in itself does not make democracy what it should really be.
What really counts or makes the difference is the quality and integrity of the representation which determines whether democracy as a system of government and reaching of consensus for a particular people to come to power and to make laws, ultimately succeeds or fails. Representation based on informed choices, the quality of the representatives, and duties that are prescribed for them by the people themselves, are the elements that make for better governance and sustainability of the democratic order in any country. This is the universal nature of the applicability of the principles of democratic government which cannot be altered or dispensed with out of convenience or expedience.
How democracies are nurtured is determined by reason, by enlightenment and by active interest in the advancement of the freedom to exercise choices and become involved in determining the future of our societies. This participatory dispensation is not just opportunistic or fortuitous and even gratuitous, but necessary in making the idea of civil government a reality. Here then, lies the importance of choice or freedom to make the appropriate decisions about representation, about the nature of government, about leadership and about the exercise of power over the people.
It is these that make or mar any democratic dispensation. It is these also that define the sustainability of the practice or its doom depending also on the mindset and peculiar characteristics of the people under such a system. This particularly is reflective in the Nigerian mode of democracy where choices are supposedly freely made, but in reality they are predetermined by a set of constructs that are difficult to adjust or even incomprehensible as far as the people’s consciousness is concerned.
The disability of the people in making informed choices have inevitably retarded and even truncated the prospects of deepening democratic governance in this country. This is so much so where constitutional provisions are either not observed or are weakly applied and the people are left without any choices by way of bringing about redress. Therefore, the idea of rule of law is impinged upon or degraded by its relegation to ordinary notice without its observance in practice. “Total debility on the part of the people” as Edmund Burke wrote, would therefore, be the ultimate undoing of democracy.
In this case when applied to the Nigerian setting, it is the total lack of consciousness about their power and seeming absence of eagerness to protect their freedoms, that will make the prevalence and survival of democracy in Nigeria a questionable prospect. It is the “sentiments of pride and duty” as rightly observed by Mr. Burke, that make people independent and also desirous of freedom. Where these sentiments are numbed by despair, eroded by disabilities or voided entirely by ignorance, the zeal and desire for a judicious system of government vanishes, and in its place the arbitrary rule of a clique is substituted.
This seems to be the trend towards which Nigeria is headed, on account of the want of determination by the people to protect their own inherent rights and to safeguard their democratic space in accordance with the dictates of reason and of enlightened self-interest. The ad hoc and desultory observance of the rules of the game in democracy as well as the wholesale and almost universal negligence by the people of their duties towards upholding the civil society by way of active participation and interest in all manners of decisions and policies, have made it possible for a narrow circle of persons to take over that space, and exercise rights and prerogatives that are beyond the regular remits of politics.
This arbitrary and irregular exercise of power has now introduced impunity and authoritarianism into our democracy which has so far translated into inadequacies and improvisations in the practice of this system of government. It is these deficiencies that would ultimately be the undoing of the democratic order in this country, and the restoration of arbitrary rule and unwholesome practices in government. To avoid such outcomes, it is imperative that the quality of representation is improved above all else in our government. To do this will require an enlightened citizenry that is conscious of its duties and interests, and the long-term prospects of stable and accountable government towards its greatness.
This requirement is manifest now more than ever before, where despair seems to be the order of the day and as satisfaction is waning ever more rapidly to the point of it being nonexistence. The dictates and paramountcy of reason are desperately required towards creating this groundswell of enlightenment and responsibility towards taking our destiny into our own hands. In aspiring to do so, we should bear the wise words of Mr. Burke in mind when he wrote thus, “Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the State, they ought by their conduct to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their country as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public that they will not abuse those trusts.”
It is time Nigerians awoke from their slumber and shake themselves free of the fetters that have prevented them from enjoying the privileges of democracy fully as others are fortunate to have done elsewhere, by taking their destinies into their own hands. They should learn quickly to make the right choices in electing the right people into offices lest they perpetuate the desultory and indifferent system of democracy that has been foisted upon them since 1999. The real task should be this awakening and not repeating the same acts of going to the polls every fourth year to put the same groups of people into office, whose performances are below our expectations, and their recall above our reach.
