The trust deficit on politicians

The military corrupted the governance structure with a bit of authoritarianism and lack of accountability with the gun as a tool of intimidation. The civilian leaderships have not leapt out of that bubble and this has impacted the kind of democracy being practiced from one electoral year to the other.

The political party system is an integral part of democratic process. Nigeria seems to have bungled that process and now the people are left with what, truly. the late political scientist and former Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo referred to as, 'mere gathering of people' rather than the organized ideologically-driven groups of people whose patriotic zeal about how a nation can be governed. Political party memberships in developed democracies are almost always about same ideological convictions flawed as some of them might be.

The Nigerian political elite have been a bit fluid in their pursuit of political power. First it was about regional identity, then about religious affiliation then down to ethnic politics. This has been very divisive and with that comes the lack of patriotic fervour that builds countries into nation and the chaos of development and social decadence. Today, the politicians care less about building political ideologies. There seems to be no cohesive political party foundation that can stand the test of time.

When political ideologies drive party membership, the system does not automatically become perfect but it is like a first step of ideological road map that gives the voters clarity and defined choices. Elections highlight the choices of people based on these ideological paths chosen by political parties. This in itself makes it easier to conduct free and fair elections because the political parties help to streamline choices in ways that their policy ideas rather than personalities are the focus.

When political parties are ideologically driven, there are clear roadmaps to their national interest perception. There are more membership allegiance. The Nigeria political party structure is more fluid and seemingly directionless. Switching from one political party to the other becomes very fashionable and accountability is sacrificed on the altar of numbers. The result then becomes very dicey. Standards seem to be lowered and it drifts into an all-comer affair.

Many political outcomes have defined the parlous state of our political parties. Political parties rarely hold their members accountable. We are yet to see political parties go against their governors or legislators for poor performance. There is rarely intra-party democracy to start with. Candidates do not go through rigorous primaries to emerge as party flag bearers and in the process tempers flare over nominations and divisions are created. This is a very weakening tool in Nigerian democracy.

The party leadership emergence processes seem to be too flawed to power a virile democracy. In developed democracies, very little is heard of party leadership because they are basically administrative and operate within the constitution. They rarely interfere in electoral processes in ways that flout the constitution. On the contrary, the political party leaderships in Nigeria are as loquacious and disruptive as they can get. That is why there is always a fierce fight to grab the party leaderships. 

In a very self-indicting way, there is a male monopoly of party leadership which translates to exclusion of women, young people and those living with disability. The tokenism of Women Leaders and Youth Leaders are not as functional as they are expedient to male emergence. Merit is often not an issue in party leadership positions. The idea that governors are the leaders of their parties in their states might sound logical on the face of it but every political observer knows that it is as expedient as it is destructive of the political space.

Governors have been unduly empowered in ways that they are often even more powerful than the president in ways they have even at most times in the political history of Nigeria since 1999 held the presidents to ransom through their self-serving Governors' Forum with branches at regional and ethnic levels. There have been cases were the social mantra have been that, “governors install from the sweepers to the speakers”. This might sound very comical but it is demonstrative of the powers of governors to wield almost imperial powers. They literarily determine who gets to be elected as a house member, national assembly member, the president and who get nominated from the states for ministerial and even ambassadorial appointments.

On the face of it, the logic might be that the governors are so omnipresent they can do all that but sadly, it shows a dysfunctional political party structure that wastes power and influence. The mistrust of the Nigerian citizens on the political processes that have been casting doubts on the system might begin to wane when political parties are structured to meet standard processes that makes the system transparent and accountable.

On a lighter note, before now the most distrusted agency of government was the police for obvious reasons. Today, the political class is not trusted by the people across party lines. This is not because the politicians are from Mars but because the people can see the processes and can draw conclusions and in their helplessness might just shrug their shoulders and move on in distrust.

The Roundtable Conversation feels that many politicians might have good intentions but is often drowned in the ocean of systemic dysfunction. We don't have to keep lamenting without doing enough to change the system. With 2027 elections merely months away, the people want clear and unambiguous messages from the political parties. Series of pre-election court cases and post-election judicial interventions to determine the victors in Nigeria remove a lot of steam from the credibility of our democracy. There must be a deliberate effort by the political elite to correct the system that has not worked for so long.

Nigerian democracy must be weaned into adulthood. The escapist claim of its nascence must give way for development. The structure as politicians define it today carries with it a flawed developmental trajectory that is as unproductive as it is stunted. The democracies we watch across the world from developed and developing nations was not a divine gift. They are all products of a people who have gone from being countries to being nations powered by the patriotic antecedents of its great politicians.

Building trust in the people comes from a deliberate altruistic actions of those who have offered to serve and write their names in the governance halls of fame for their contributions. The system must begin a rebirth that would be inclusive of the people. It must be noted that the trust of the citizens is a sine qua non t development. When the citizens trust the system, they can buy into the policies and be real partners in progress. The lack of trust is as demoralizing as it is destabilizing. Nation-building is a cyclical enterprise that goes from the leadership to the people and back to the leaders in ways that the outcome is a more united and progressive nation state that have developed a synergy that works.

With the globally recognized excellence associated with Nigerians everywhere in the world, the political class must be made up of those who see beyond individual, religious or tribal glory to a more cohesive nation bound by functional democratic choices. Political parties must be beyond the mundane. It must leap to functional groups with viable ideological road maps to a much desired development. 65 years of independence must be evidently worth the years in development to earn the trust of not just the people but on a global level.

• The dialogue continues…