{"id":238730,"date":"2022-09-30T16:18:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T14:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/nigerias-independence-day-is-a-time-to-reflect-on-political-gains-and-challenges-and-a-way-forward\/"},"modified":"2022-09-30T16:18:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T14:18:13","slug":"nigerias-independence-day-is-a-time-to-reflect-on-political-gains-and-challenges-and-a-way-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/nigerias-independence-day-is-a-time-to-reflect-on-political-gains-and-challenges-and-a-way-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria’s Independence Day is a time to reflect on political gains and challenges \u2013 and a way forward"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nigeria got independence from Britain on 1 October 1960<\/a>. As the country celebrates its political journey in the last 62 years, political scientist Ayo Olukotun takes a look at the nation\u2019s political development, gains and challenges. He also offers the way forward.<\/em><\/p>\n

How would you describe Nigeria\u2019s political development?<\/h2>\n

Well, in terms of evolution, the nation appears to be shedding the toga of unitarism and jackboot politics<\/a> \u2013 at least for now. However, there are residues of the long years of military rule in today\u2019s civilian democracy. Nigeria is still quite authoritarian.<\/p>\n

One example would be a report recently released by the National Human Rights Commission. Discipline was recommended against some police officers because they allegedly brutalised civilians<\/a>. And, despite the EndSARS protests<\/a> against police brutality in 2020, not much has changed in terms of their behaviour.<\/p>\n

There is also presidential omnipotence. The Nigerian president is about the most powerful president in Africa<\/a>. This power is made possible by the 1999 constitution<\/a>, a unitary document masquerading as a federalist one. State governors, too, are protected by the constitution. Nobody dares challenge them: in one instance a journalist was arrested<\/a> for statements a governor considered uncomplimentary.<\/p>\n

What about political gains?<\/h2>\n

One of the gains is the fact that we have not had a coup since 1999, although there have been coup rumours<\/a>. We appear, for now, to have overcome democratic regression \u2013 unlike other countries in West Africa and other parts of Africa where you have one-man rule, coup d\u2019etats and so on.<\/p>\n

Another gain is freedom of speech. Nigerians can now express themselves, unlike during the military era. However, as evidenced by the journalist\u2019s experience I described, this gain is being eroded by authoritarian governors and leaders. <\/p>\n

What is working against Nigeria\u2019s development?<\/h2>\n

Despite the launching of some anti-corruption agencies, there is still large scale corruption. Take the former accountant general of the federation, who has been charged with stealing N109 billion<\/a>. And there are other cases of corruption involving former office holders. <\/p>\n

Then look at how the last primaries by the major political parties were monetised<\/a>. One contender withdrew because, he said<\/a>, the process was \u201cobscenely monetised\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Read more: Money is breaking democracy in Nigeria<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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Poverty is another challenge. The political leaders have turned poverty into a weapon against the people. Ethnicity and religious bigotry are also holding back Nigeria\u2019s political and economic development. <\/p>\n

What should Nigeria be doing to uplift itself?<\/h2>\n

We must go back to federalism or what some people call true federalism: power should be devolved to the federating units. These are the federal, state and local governments.<\/p>\n

Many have called for this over time because Britain, which is a unitary nation, embraced power devolution<\/a>. If unitary states are reaping the benefits of devolution, why not Nigeria? The council flats that you hear about in the UK are built by local governments and that system works far better than our own councils. Also, their police are decentralised and they are effective. The same is true in several parts of Europe.<\/p>\n

Before now political leaders in northern Nigeria opposed state police, but now northern governors, leaders and monarchs<\/a> have been calling for state police because of the high level of insecurity in those areas. <\/p>\n

There must also be more focus on corruption. What we have under President Muhammadu Buhari is like a contest between anti-corruption and politics. In my opinion, politics has overtaken anti-corruption \u2013 that is why ministers who have fraud cases at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are still in office. The government finds it difficult to nail them because of political issues and deals.<\/p>\n

There are other things that a nation that wants to move forward should do; quality education is one of them. We should invest in education. But Nigeria is not funding education at all levels. And the universe has disappeared from our nation\u2019s university system: what makes it global has disappeared over time.<\/p>\n

Do you think Nigeria has a future?<\/h2>\n

It depends on how the public office holders behave. All of them come with rosy promises. They promise heaven and earth. At the end of the day maybe they achieve only 10% of those promises. But if they can up their game there\u2019s no reason why Nigeria can\u2019t progress. <\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, Nigeria was predicted to be similar to one of the Asian Tigers (South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan). It was going to grow at a comparable rate to these nations. Instead it has been regressive.<\/p>\n

At independence in 1960, Nigeria was richer than China<\/a>. China is a world power today. Nigeria could be a continental power, or bigger, if the leaders and the followers can reverse the current tide of regression and corrupt politics.<\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigeria got independence from Britain on 1 October 1960. As the country celebrates its political journey in the last 62 years, political scientist Ayo Olukotun takes a look at the nation\u2019s political development, gains and challenges. He also offers the way forward. How would you describe Nigeria\u2019s political development? Well, in terms of evolution, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-238730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-mypr","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/nigerias-independence-day-is-a-time-to-reflect-on-political-gains-and-challenges-and-a-way-forward-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}