Guardian

Prof. Warisu Oyeshina Alli, Dean School of Postgraduate Studies and Professor of Political Science, University of Jos, took time to examine the performance of politicians and attempted to feel the pulse of the electorate in these 14 years of democratic rule. He said the game must change before 2015, in this interview with ISA ABDULSALAMI AHOVI in Jos.

LOOKING at the performance of political office holders, do you feel happy at what they are serving citizens?

I don’t think you can find many Nigerians that are happy with the state of the nation, with the efforts of our national, state and community leaders. But we should not reduce our evaluation of the trajectory of democracy in Nigeria since 1999 to just the inadequacies, the deficiencies in leadership. Rather, we should take a very broad approach to evaluating the result of 14 years of democratic rule in Nigeria. And when we do that, we will find that there are gains everywhere. There are gains in terms of greater awareness of the power of the people. There is greater consciousness by officials, civil, security officials, greater awareness of the need to respect human rights. There is the greater appreciation of the need to provide socio-economic welfare for the people.

And on the part of the people, democracy has empowered the people to speak out, to organise, to engage the political system, to raise issues, to confront political leaders, at different levels. Even though when you see the kind of impunity we still experience, particularly at the state and local government levels I should say, you may conclude that all this our consciousness, awareness is not defining the trajectory of politics, the trajectory of policy-making, the trajectory of policy implementation. But I guess by and large, we can say we are a better country now, more informed and hopefully we will continue to build the capacity of the people to challenge political authorities. We have now a very developed societal community, very active in advancing policies, in challenging policies, in engaging policies. All these are part of the gains in the last 14 years. And here and there, I guess, we are beginning to see signs of our capacity to build the institutions. We are not yet there. Definitely we are not yet there. But I think we are moving somewhere.

How do you measure actual performance?

Of course, government has not performed to the level of the expectation of the people. I guess the people’s ambitions and expectations have never been met since independence. Probably, what has happened now is that we are more informed now than hitherto, our people are more informed than before, we are now more critical than before, we are able to appreciate the inadequacies of those in power and we are able to even articulate our own needs and put our expectations against what the government is offering. So, yes, we are definitely not being served well. Our expectations have not been met.

Sometimes, you see the many deficiencies in our national life and you will want to conclude that it has not been worth it. But I want to say that definitely we are making progress even though very little at a very snail speed. And as I was trying to say earlier, you will find that the kind of scrutiny that the government at the federal level is facing, none of the state governments is facing it. So, you can see that while the federal government is being challenged to improve its ways, to do things better, at the state level, you hardly see any activism on the part of the state legislatures. You hardly see them challenging the governors; you hardly see them presenting policy initiatives, you hardly see them trying to advance new ideas or even subject executive policies to critical examination. I cannot point to a state where there is legislative activism to improve governance, and the local government is probably even worse because you cannot remove the local government from what is happening at the state government level. So, we have problems here and there. At the national level, we are able to speak a lot and the society is critical and making effort to challenge authorities. Just a few days ago, the Senate President had to come out to say that the National Assembly is not in confrontation with the Executive, but is just doing its duties because the activism of the National Assembly tends to give the impression. They are actually criticising, challenging the executive at so many levels. But when you come to the states, do you see anything of that? And the state governments are nearer to the people, so we should be more up and doing, we should be more critical, we should be ready to evaluate and assess on a day to day basis the policy options that the state governments are adopting.

How do we collectively up the game ahead of 2015?

In a democratic setting, we are always hoping that any electoral circle is an opportunity to make new choices. What I expect is first, that the federal government will take all the many criticisms that are coming its way as reason to improve on its service delivery in critical areas, infrastructure, roads for example, power. I always find it quite unbelievable that the federal government cannot complete Lokoja-Abuja Road since almost forever. They broke it into so many sections to facilitate early completion. But each time you go there, it is just done piecemeal. Look at Akure-Lagos, Ibadan-Lagos, Benin-Ore, there is always this talk, that there is improvement but when you go there, you don’t see it. It is like photo trick. So, all those kinds of slow pace of service delivery are not endearing the government to the people.

I think the President is aware of this high level of criticism, the government is aware. So, from the point of government, if government wants to enjoy the support of the people, government has to improve on service delivery to the people. Look at power. The Minister of Information went on this Good Governance Tour and was saying as quoted by newspapers that most parts of Nigeria enjoy 18 hours of power. But I can tell you and I am sure you don’t even enjoy six hours of electricity supply per day in your house (laughter). This is an unnecessary provocation. How can you be telling people who are physically experiencing power outages for weeks un-end and you say everywhere is enjoying improved 18 hours of power supply per day. It is completely wrong and uncalled for. So, we need improvement.

Then we have the water problem, the health problem, the education sector, the plight of the pensioners, the unacceptable high level of unemployment, the lack of concern for economic production. You know there is always a talk about the economy. But economy is built on production. What are we producing? What policy measures have been put in place to facilitate economic production? There is no power, for example, to help even existing industries, to enhance capacity utilisation, not to talk of new investments.

So, all these are challenges and of course the critical issue is election. As I said, our people are more emboldened, our people are more critical, our people are more empowered now, thanks to democracy, and we have this new political movement, which I appreciate very much. This new creation, the coming together of the hitherto smaller political parties, to create a kind of political force that can in itself create change. What I mean is, when smaller political forces combine to face a mega political power that is entrenched, you should expect firecrackers, you should expect a lot of fireworks. And the Nigerian people are bound to benefit from it. So, I don’t see 2015, as many people see it, that, it is going to mark the end of the nation, because I believe incrementally, progressively our political system is developing. It is developing in a direction that will benefit the people and the institutional capacity building for politics at a higher level is emerging. The coming together of these forces forced by circumstances to come together, people say they are strange bedfellows, but I don’t see it that way. I see it as the powerful hand of history, of politics moving the dynamics of national engagement in a direction that nobody could have predicted. This should force the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to mend its ways, to be more productive and is also a challenge for those that are coming to challenge PDP to come with better policy options. So you can see, whichever way you look at it, the people are likely to benefit. So, I look at 2015 as an opportunity. Of course it is going to be rough. You know that to resolve the many contradictions in the system is not going to be a walk-away. It is not going to be a piece of cake. But that is what a society in transition is supposed to engage in. You can’t expect that this very volatile, very complex country can just expect that all the contradictions we have in our system can just be waved away like that. No. Anybody going into the struggle should know that he is going to face a very serious struggle. But in the final analysis, I am sure Nigeria is going to be stronger and the people are going to benefit.

So, we should go ahead and celebrate?

I think so. You know there are issues. People will feel that June 12 was a watershed in our political history. It deserves to be mentioned, it deserves to be celebrated, it deserves to be commemorated. So, also was the return of democratic rule. You know all those decades under military rule, there was no progress in so many spheres.

There were so many inadequacies, impunity, recklessness of those in authority and we were able to find our way out of it and come into the Fourth Republic with a lot of hope. Now, the Fourth Republic has endured. That is a very significant experience. It has endured. We have had several elections. With all the flaws of those elections, the nation stood in place stronger. Despite the contradictions, the conflicts, the struggles, the nation remains strong and we can continue to look back at that May 29 as a very important day that we ought to continue to celebrate.