Residents of Akwa Ibom, Rivers, and Cross River have called for a patriotic democracy in Nigeria, urging strict autonomy for the judiciary and the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to strengthen democratic practice.
The residents reacted to a survey on the state of Nigeria’s democratic consolidation and how to improve it, conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
They said that dilapidated infrastructure, poor conduct of election, insecurity and hardship marked the nation’s democracy down.
They called for the patriotism among politicians and the collective will of the country’s leaders to institute a democracy that the majority of Nigerians would be happy with.
In Akwa Ibom, a don, Prof. Aniekan Brown, urged drivers of democracy to be more responsible in order to ensure a democratic rule Nigerians would be proud of.
Brown, a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Uyo, said that democracy should be made less expensive and its managers more accountable.
He added that investment in infrastructure development should benefit the people, saying that democracy should be made to benefit every citizen and not a few.
Brown said that going forward, the dividends of democracy should be more defined and empowerment more encompassing.
”If you look back to what happened in 1999 and you sit back to look at what is happening now, you’ll see that we are far from being perfect.
“However, I will opine that the worst democracy is better than the best autocratic system.
“So, let Nigeria get ventilating; let Nigerians keep making contributions to our governance system, but I like to say that we are capable of doing more,” Brown said.
An Uyo-based legal practitioner, Mr Clifford Thomas, said what the country had been practicing since 1999 was not democracy, but civil rule, as the principles of democracy had not been followed.
Thomas said that democracy should be a popular participation in free, fair, credible, and generally acceptable elections.
”That has not been possible because every election result is contested and when you look at it from the prism of truth, you noticed it is true that the elections were shortchanged.
He urged politicians to stop killing democracy by being ”food democrats,” to shun the sales of the nation’s conscience and to stop the desperate quest for power.
Thomas also urged them to eschew all strategies of corruption, tribalism, favouritism and ethnic-religious sentiments in order to ensure a perfect democracy.
He said that infrastructure should be built to support industrialisation, reduce poverty, and reduce the vulnerability of the populace, calling for a home-based and inexpensive democracy.
“We should have a home form of democracy based on our culture because the democracy we have is not working.
“It is too capitalistic, China has its own form of democracy; Japan has its own form of democracy; even in Europe, they have their own primary form of democracy which is aligned with their socioeconomic milieu,” he said.
Thomas called for a return to true federalism or confederation to allow every state grow at its own pace, saying that young people should be allowed to contest for president to inject fresh ideas into governance.
Mr Eyibio Okon, a legal practitioner, said that democracy as practiced in Nigeria was not suitable for the people’s growth and added that monarchical system of government would have worked better than the current system.
He said that democracy, since 1999, was nothing Nigerians could build on as they were disenchanted and fed up due to high cost of living.
”We have nothing to consolidate; we have to build ourselves from scratch, and If we must build ourselves, then the time is now; the public has to be educated for political participation to choose the right people,” he said.
He questioned Nigeria democracy, saying, ”democracy thrives in a place where institutions work, the government is responsible to the people and respects the law.”
He advised Nigerians to go for a system of government that would fit the country and reduce criminality.
On the current democratic consolidation, a legal practitioner, Mr Sunday Okon-Akpan, said that the INEC should be truly independent to ensure free, fair, credible and acceptable elections in the country.
”To have a good democracy in Nigeria, the tenets of democracy, the rule of the majority must prevail and the rights of the minority must be protected.
He added that for a better democratic consolidation tomorrow, the judiciary should be strengthened to protect democracy in Nigeria, remain upright and be last hope for the common people.
In Rivers, the residents called for a stronger institution of people’s-oriented leadership while urging the politicians to be patriotic in protecting the country’s democracy.
Mr Savior Imaebe, a political analyst and President, South-South Youths Initiative, said democracy would only be strong when institutions were made stronger than individuals.
”The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be practically independent in its perceived task of conducting free, fair and credible electoral processes.
He called for the full autonomy of INEC and its empowerment to enforce severe penalties for electoral offenders in order to restore the citizens’ hope.
He said the courts should be enabled to fast track judicial reforms so that electoral and corruption cases could be concluded within months, not years.
He urged the federal government to implement full financial and administrative autonomy of local governments to strengthen grassroots governance through provision of functional primary healthcare, schools, roads, and other basic amenities.
Mrs Confidence Uba, a former PDP Women’s Leader in Oyigbo, urged lawmakers to enact laws that embrace transparently and monitor party primaries to check imposition of candidates.
She also enjoined political parties to refrain from building their ideologies and internal democracy on money and favouritism.
Another respondent, Mr Tele Batram, the recently elected candidate of the African Democratic Congress(ADC) for the Rivers South-East Senatorial seat, said Nigeria’s democracy needed an urgent fixing.
He called for patriotism and accountability to safeguard the nation’s democracy, urging reasonable and well-meaning Nigerians to assist in making the system an enviable one.