Amobi P. Chiamogu (Ugwumba Omaliwo)

Department of Public Administration, Federal Polytechnic, Oko, amobi.chiamogu@federalpolyoko.edu.ng

Issues Canvassed

Since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule (democracy if you so wish) in 1999, political leaders comprising those who occupy political leadership positions and those around the corridors of power have alienated the government from the citizens. They have ruled Nigeria for themselves without adequate attention and care for the needs of the citizenry. They mete and dole resources to and unto themselves with little or no care for the masses. The citizens are only remembered in the time of elections when demeaning chunks of carted public resources are deployed in vote buying. Nigerian democracy has completely eroded citizens’ trust in governments and the use of state power. Politicians have captured the state and are wielding the instruments of state force for themselves and their cronies. So far, there is no significant difference between military and civilian regimes: human rights are yet to be granted to the citizens, the press is muzzled, legislative and judicial arms of the government are suppressed and subordinated to the executive. The state and its instruments of coercion are personalized in the executive arm of government by either the President at the federal or the Governor at the state levels.

Elections without Democracy

Elections are periodically conducted by populist leaders who have stripped Nigerian electoral processes of its democratic characteristics. They wear democratic attires (agbada) to destroy the real institutions and structures of democracy and governance. Presidentialization of powers and governance at federal and state levels of government granted enormous (excessive) powers and even authority to the executive arm of government (Onu, Chiamogu & Onwughalu, 2012). The executive arm of the government at all levels has subsumed and subjugated other organs (the legislature and judiciary) of government of their potency and supposedly legitimate powers in return for authoritarian leadership that are championing democrazy in Nigeria. Democracy is fast dwindling in Nigeria with several tendencies of illiberal populism. The citizens’ whose mandates the leaders need to govern are grossly deprived of dividends of democracy except for skewed deliverables that even the military regimes provided at their pace (Obiora & Chiamogu, 2020). Democracy like Socrates posited has turned complete demagoguery where the majority are crazy and following the bandwagon thereby not serving the people as anticipated. In this context, the majority is withdrawn and apathetic to party politics and governance. Political participation has been marked massive citizens’ withdrawal and widespread apathy due to disillusionment and perennial violence resulting in continual spiral dwindling voter turnout (Chiamogu & Chiamogu, 2019). The fear of secessionist or even ethnic agitators like IPOB in the South East, Boko Haram insurgency and Fulani armed terrorist herders from the North, MEND and Niger Delta militants in the South-South, Odua People’s Congress in the South-West coupled with poverty of governance matched with unbridled electoral malfeasance and fragrant violence have pushed the people into political disillusionment. The people are suffering from elite orchestrated national insecurity and alienation from the government which resulted in complete lack of confidence and withdrawal from perceived irrelevance on the presumption that “votes are not sacrosanct”. Political leaders are today ‘selected in pseudo elections’ with mandates coming from less than one-fifth of registered voters. Check all elections conducted in Nigeria from 2007 till date including the 2017 gubernatorial elections in Anambra state, 2019 Presidential elections. Executive aggrandizement has been fully deployed in the misconduct of Nigerian elections (Bermeo, 2016). Presidentialized power structure had paved way for excessive personalization of powers in what some scholars refer to as democratic oligarchy (Egbo, 2020). Politics and administration thus are dependent upon the mien and character of political leadership who systematically deploy state apparatuses against institutions of governance for political succession. 

Wretched Masses and Political Leadership

The masses are suffocating in poverty and lack of basic amenities. Unemployment is biting while access to education and medicare is for the rich (Obiora & Chiamogu, 2019). Many struggle to attain higher classes in tertiary institutions but end up as illiterate graduates who pose the greatest threat to communities. This crass of persons constitute the majority of the social deviants in communities because they have seen and tested the good and bad of western education but failed to acquire functional skills and employable certificates for personal development. They (as developed plagues) constitute willing tools in the hands of the political elites for continued impoverishment and orchestrated disempowerment of the citizens and their communities. In the same vein, poor healthcare delivery makes average life expectancy to get so low that attainment of 60 years is now okokokooo. Some discerning minds lend credits to Covid-19 pandemic for getting many of the Nigerian elites involved in medical tourism to face the wrath of the grossly exploited Nigerian society when international borders were closed and lockdown imprisoned everybody to feel the real state of medicare provision in Nigeria. Behold! Many prominent Nigerians gave up the ghost within the period. The government is so insensitive and irresponsible to the plight of the people that economic policies do not consider the stark realities for the poor but the few who are seated in the row with the eminent. The impoverishment of the Nigerian citizens moves in a continuum: it cuts political parties and governments (PDP, APC and APGA). At biting economic situation when the cost of living has quadrupled, the government has continued to increase the pump price of petroleum and sanctioned unmitigated hike in electricity tariff. Wretched is modest in description of the economic status of average Nigerian citizens. A country where minimum wage for workers does not buy a bag of rice amounts to living in hell. Or what other staple foods could pauperized citizens afford? The government votes and spends billions of naira on feeding school children even in the period of lockdown when nobody was in school. What a shame! According to UNICEF, “one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria”. About 10.5 million of the country’s children aged 5-14 years are not in school. Only 61 percent of 6-11 year-olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6 percent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education. On its own, the World Health Organization (WHO) described Nigeria as a country where nearly 20% of all global maternal deaths happen. Deductively, a Nigerian woman has a 1 in 22-lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum/post-abortion; whereas in the most developed countries, the lifetime risk is 1 in 4900. Currently, Nigeria has about 512 maternal mortality per 100,000 birth ranking about the worst in the whole world. Accordingly, Onyedinefu (2020) observed that the ratio of doctors to patients in Nigeria is 1:2753 translating to 36.6 doctors to 100,000 persons. These factors are not unconnected with high emigrant stock of 1,438,331 where many citizens would rather die in the desert than continue to live in squalid. The sanctity of life for Nigerians is no more.  

Socio-economic Policies and Disempowerment

Policies matter for inequalities and vice versa. Imbalances in economic power are eventually translated into political dominance. The people have lost confidence in the government and the politicians are perpetuating anti-people policies to continually sustain their leadership recruitment programmes for themselves and their children. Imagine a scenario where poverty is rife and the government is enunciating beautiful speeches on alleviating and not eradicating it. Did I hear you talk about empowerment? Our political leaders are not committed to human capital development. They would rather get our youths wrenched in alcohol and eating spree as perpetual fools marked for use as instruments of political power acquisition and consolidation. My people, no amount of drinking beer and even champagne can change anybody’s fortune. The more you consume, the less you make good use of your senses and loose value for your lives. Our politicians would impoverish and deprive you of empowerment in order to get you readily available for use in electioneering campaigns. They set the people against themselves, use the state paraphernalia of force to intimidate, shut their mouths and drive them away from their rights. Even peaceful protest #Endsars has been overturned to hounding perceived enemies. Have you seen any of them engaging their children as thugs and foot soldiers to disrupt elections? It cannot be. Their children train in reputable ivory towers abroad in preparation for leadership positions while those of the poor are tactically forced to be susceptible to abuse as willing recruits into negative electoral duties for peanuts. These and many more are reasons why Nigerian politicians would never empower the people. Sorry, some might decide to embark on cosmetic and dangerous pseudo-skill acquisition by gifting motorcycles, sewing and grinding machines and at times tricycle to university graduates as express route to abject poverty and penury. This way, the political elites technically scheme the masses (average Nigerians) out of the way for their children to emerge as next generation of leaders thereby rendering the poorly trained children of the masses gullible and subservient. They care very much about their children and render your linage servants forever.

Politics of Welfare Maladministration

Citizens’ wellbeing is a top policy priority of responsible governments across the globe (Umar & Tafida, 2015). Welfare programmes from this perspective for wellbeing constitute criteria for measuring the developmental interest of a government about its citizens. Given the fact that social welfare programmes remain people-oriented efforts, it is expectedly a close acquaintance of a democratic leadership. However, Nigerian political leaders are interested in winning elections and not the welfare of the electorates or provision of infrastructure. When they mobilize you with arms for elections, you win power for them and they return in tinted glass vehicles such that you do not even know when they pass by your houses. They earmark whooping sums of money for social welfare but scheme and scam the programmes in favour of their cronies and relatives. They circumvent public procurement processes to award juicy contracts to them wards and agents. They create non-living jobs and recruit (through the back door) their praise singers to ensure perpetual servitude. Create N-Power, trader moni, conditional cash transfer programmes for citizens’ continual exploitation. They attend burials and weddings to show off the level of riches and affluence (luxurious motorcades) amassed over night and you celebrate them on social media handles in the name of good governance agitation. They check your freedom of expression with repressive rules like hate speech to safeguard their ludicrous election victory guaranteed personalities. You were the ladder for their access and acquisition of political power and you shall remain ladders that cannot be used for more meaningful ventures. Upon expiration of tenure, they invite you again for ignoble night jobs that you have been subjected by fate to perfecting. Your (cult) group is armed and mobilized to the teeth against your fellow poor countrymen counter groups to ensure another round of victory for them. Are you soldiers of Christ (with swords or axes) or in the Nigerian army (with guns)? Why are you fighting against your neighbours? The money that was not available for projects were provided for you to fight his path back to power. Wake up my friend.

Vote Trading and Democracy Dividends

Some other citizens are not engaged in physical fighting using guns and axes but are dancing naked in the market squares across the country in sales and purchases of votes. Stomach infrastructure as designed by the politicians is ruling most Nigerian citizens. Are you free? I guess you are not. Majority has joined the bandwagon. Many have given in to prebendal politics: political clientelism and gifting reciprocity – quid pro quo kind of life. They are selling and buying public positions like goods and services whose prices are negotiated in the open market. Votes have been commoditized in the Nigerian political culture in a voting behavioural pattern that virtually nobody casts vote(s) without getting something in return or paid brazenly. Votes are fully monetized in a “pay and get my vote syndrome”. Yes, I cannot beat them, let me join or get the much that I can get from them. After all, whether I accept it or not, they must get what they want. Election periods are reckoning times for the electorates and political office holders. During these periods, public office holders are supposedly held accountable and checked in manners that the electorates retain sovereignty in democracies but in Nigeria, the trend is different. Vote trading is rife. The party candidates bargain with the electorates through political brokers on how much that votes will be sold and bought. The electorates ask for and get paid sums ranging from ₦500 to ₦5000 depending on the location and stake of electorates. This may be responsible for the deployment of bank bullion vans to Jagaba’s residence during the 2019 general elections. As a political power broker, Jagaban got bank(s) to dispatch cash in the magnitude of getting bullion van conveyance to a private individual’s residence in a nation where the Central Bank has stringent regulations on cash withdrawals and lodgments. A consideration of how these monies are distributed and shared tends to signify involvement of the government in the nefarious acts.

Vote trading is thus a practice of exchanging money or other resources for votes during elections (Afolabi, 2020).  It  describes a situation of manipulating voter’s behaviour by enticing them with money or other material benefits in forms of liquid cash, food items, other gift items and clothes in order to direct their voting pattern in favour of a particular political party or candidate during election. According to Uchenna-Emezue (2015), “vote trading is an open form of bribery that substantially corrupts the Nigerian electoral system”. Invariably, any financial or material rewards and favour granted to voters by those seeking to occupy public positions in a bid to induce them to vote for a particular candidate is considered as vote trading. There may be exceptions to this in the Nigerian context where the government is overtly irresponsible and not committed to developmental politics. Some evolving cum trendy politicians (who have the economic wherewithal) have learnt to fill the gaps in government business. They embark on massive infrastructural development to win the support of the electorates. They undertake and build public infrastructure such as roads, extend electricity to suburbs and rural areas through self acclaimed foundations in order to sell their names and garner popularity. Typical examples of such personalities include Rochas Okorocha of Rochas Foundation, Ifeanyi Uba of Ifeanyi Uba Foundation, Dr. Godwin Maduka of Dr. Godwin Maduka Foundation, Dozie Nwankwo Foundation, Tony Elumelu of Tony Elumelu Foundation, Sir Emeka Offor of Sir Emeka Offor Foundation amongst others. They fill up latent gaps that successive governments refused to handle and subconsciously reach out and win the heart of the citizenry. Their gifts and acts of philanthropy are well accepted by the people but the grand design are obvious. 

Nigerian politicians are very smart people. They understand the art of politicking for money and personal development. Once somebody buys his way into public office, he joins the elites and becomes an integral member of the ruling class. They are organized and committed to maintaining their positions of dominance over the governed or the ruled. Ironically, many of these politicians do not owe the electorates allegiance. The electorates commoditized mandates and they bought it at great pains including bizarre oath taking and swearing at shrines with their financiers (godfathers and godmothers). Many of them borrowed the monies shared and gifted at elections from Shylock money lenders and power brokers where they automatically shift their genuine constituencies to salvage the terms of engagement. The promises are for the records. After all, politicians with best manifestoes never win elections in Nigeria. Or did Buhari attend presidential debates one day? Take it or leave it, traders buy and sell to make profits. Politics Nigeria bu Maka ego, oburo maka olu obodo. Very few persons embark on politics to serve the people.

Conclusion

We have given our hearts away in a sordid boom. The masses have resorted to vote selling and the politicians are buying in steadily growing scales and brazenness. Several videos and images have emerged, showing unabashed sharing of cash, food and valuable items among the electorates by politicians and parties in national and state elections. Hence, an apt description of Nigeria’s electoral politics refers to it as “cash-and-carry democracy”. Since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999, the actual dividends of democracy (rule of law, press freedom and mass participation in credible elections) have remained elusive. National development and improved life for Nigerians are rather disappointing. Majority of Nigerians are wallowing in abject poverty and general hopelessness owing largely to counterproductive and unfavourable government policies. The emergent civilian political leaders have not proven to be significantly different from their military counterparts.

Political discourses across the 36 states of the Nigerian federation are becoming increasingly more polarized with the citizens getting sharply divided along who gets what in relation to power, influence and resources (Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019). Checks and balances are being weakened, while executive powers are strengthened to allow the government advance their policies unhindered in executive aggrandizement which is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Invariably, elected executives undertake policies that weaken checks on executive power by gradually undertaking series of institutional changes that weaken applicability of the doctrine of rule of law. The executive (personalized by the President and or the governor) asserts domineering control over other arms of government by undermining legislative and judicial autonomies.  It muzzles media freedom, weaken opposition and strangulate criticisms. Having captured the state, it allows electoral irregularities that simultaneously impede citizens’ participation and harm the prospects of electoral victory for the opposition, while favouring the incumbent’s political parties (Freedom House, 2020).

Recommendations

Presidentialization of political powers at all levels of government in Nigeria should be reviewed to checkmate abuses by the executive arm of the government. This is necessary to allow more definite separation of powers that would conduce to emergence of co-equal arms of government and safeguard legislative and judicial autonomies. It would further strengthen institutions of governance and imbue virile checks and balances that would guarantee accountability in public business, democracy and good governance in Nigeria.

References

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Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19.            https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2016.0012

Chiamogu, P.A & Chiamogu, P.U. (2019). Voter turnout and the 2017 gubernatorial election in Anambra State: A critical analysis. Studies in Politics and Society,      7(1),    143-155.

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Freedom House (2020). Freedom in the world 2020: A leaderless struggle for democracy. New York, USA: Freedom House.

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Obiora, C.A., & Chiamogu, P.A. (2020). The 2019 general elections and intra-party conflicts in   Nigeria: A cross sectional analysis of APC, APGA and PDP. Socialscientia Journal of  the Social Sciences and Humanities, 5(2), 23-42

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Onyedinefu, G. (2020, March 4). Ration of Nigerian doctors to population is 1:2753. Businessday. https://businessday.ng/uncategorized/article/ratio-of-nigerian-doctors-to-   population-is-1-2753-fg/

Umar, H.S., & Tafida, A.D. (2015). Democracy and social welfare services in Nigeria: A perspective of the forth republic. Public Policy and Administration Research, 5(2), 59-66

UNICEF (n.d). Education. https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/education#:~:text=One%20in%20every%20five%20of,ye  ars%20are%20not%20in%20school.