Correlation between democracy, poverty and insurgency

By Umar Ardo

The popular saying of the South American priest that “the poor cannot sleep because they are hungry and the rich cannot sleep because the poor are awake” has a menacingly poignant relevance to the current insecurity, insurgency and separatist tendencies in Nigeria. Ever since the return of democratic rule in 1999, the country has witnessed upsurge in civil strives and outright armed insurgencies to the point that today we can assert, most unfortunately, that the future of our country is uncertain. From the multiple ethnic militias, ravaging armed banditries, Niger Delta militants, Boko Haram insurgency to the current IPOB/Biafra separatist movement, Nigeria has had no semblance of peace ever since.
Not that the country had enjoyed absolute peace before, but the severity and intensity of the current insecurity and separatist tendencies in virtually all parts of the country are way out of all proportions to anything we saw since the end of the civil war in 1970. Nigerians today have become so wild against each other that the sanctity of human life has completely lost its essence amongst us. To kill one another, and to call for more killings of one another, have now become the vogue of our daily way of life. Whether the reasons for these genocidal murders are political, religious, economic, environmental, settler/indigence squabble, etc., we as a people have proven to the whole wide world that we have not grown beyond the instinct of wild animals. What a great pity! What a shame!!
In contrast, since 1999, Nigerians are being promised and assured of good life by our politicians seeking public offices. Under the generic parlance of “dividends of democracy”, we are being promised high standard of living – i.e. assured peace, security, education, healthcare, power, clean potable water, economic prosperity, political rights and freedom, transparency and honesty in leadership, etc. Understandably, yearning for such ‘high standard of living’, Nigerians trusted their political class, joined ranks to fight for the entrenchment of democracy and embraced their politicians. In other words, we elected our politicians into public offices in the hope that they will bring forth positive changes to our lives. How so disappointed Nigerians today have become!
While the democratic constitution of the country, buoyed by international human rights environment, has brought in liberty, rights and freedom to individuals and groups in the country, the entrenched governments, both of the past PDP’s and the present APC’s, woefully failed to bring to fruition the promised ‘high standard of living’ expected by to the citizenry. On the contrary, what citizens got are large scale and wide spread of poverty and hardship across the land, chiefly brought about by poor or failed public policies, high level of corruption and dishonesty on the part of the very politicians elected into public offices, election and electoral malpractices by practitioners, a compromised and insincere judiciary, among many other vices in public service.
To resolve these problems, the government must try to understand their fundamental underpinnings, rather than allow unwarranted sentiments of fringe groups of politicians, or even main stream interest groups, like the irredentist ethnic, sectional or religious sects, to poison the atmosphere with wild and virulent claims and accusations. The fundamental challenge is for the government to resolve the two most critical elements to these separatist tendencies – i.e. the economic, political and social elements. On the economic level, the government must find ways and means of decentralizing economic opportunities and national resources in such a way as to bridge this unacceptable wide gap between the rich and the poor amongst our citizens. On the political side, the government must freely open the political space, institute credible electoral process both at the party and general levels, by creating level playing fields in politics where incumbents do not invariably win all elections anyhow, shun winner-takes-all tendency governance and make government an all-inclusive affair. On the social side, the government must strengthen public authorities in all aspects of life by enforcing all laws, rules and regulations. No person or authority must circumvent any law or regulation, micro or macro; thus engraining public obedience and enhancing societal orderliness. Applying these measures would invariably help prevent system breakdown.
Without us getting such economic policies, democratic tenets and social practices in place at the community, local government, state and federal levels we cannot halt and prevent individual and group revolts against the establishment. Not that over the years successive regimes did not come up with policies aimed at achieving these objectives; certainly efforts were made in the past, but they all came to naught. The reason for these failures is simple – inapt policies and strategies were applied, hence failing to give us the results we expect. For us to succeed as a nation will depend on the policies and strategies the governments ultimately adopt in pursuit of the desired collective objectives. We therefore need not only appropriate policy options on these three prongs but we also need right strategies in conceiving and applying such policies. These, undoubtedly, are the plausible ways to resolve the current security and separatist challenges, mitigate the calls for restructuring and achieve national unity, stability and development for our country.

Dr. Ardo writes from Abuja

 

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