By Agboola Bayo
A member of the House of Representatives from Oyo state, Hon. Muritala Kayode Busari, yesterday said the country’s democracy was still in transition stage and “cannot take it anywhere.”
The lawmaker, who represents Akinyele / Lagelu federal constituency, stated this while speaking as a guest at a roundtable program organised by the League of Veteran Journalists in Oyo state in Ibadan.
He, in his paper entitled “The Press: As an Instrument of Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria’s 4th Republic,” said the available facts on ground in the country clearly showed that the nation’s democracy is still in transition, adding that “this type of transitional democracy being practiced in the country cannot take Nigeria to anywhere.”
Busari said the nation’s democracy would be out of its present transitional stage the moment “we have the opposition parties defeating the ruling party at the centre like what happened recently in Ghana when a ruling party was defeated at the centre.”
He said: “Though there are opposition parties in the country, but none of them have definite ideology to move the country move forward, it is when we have opposition parties defeating the ruling one at the centre, when we have politics of ideology and intellectualism, that is when we can say our democracy is moving and out of the transition stage.”
Emphasising that it was unfortunate that only one party had been dominating the centre in the country since 1999 without strong opposition that could challenge the ruling party on intellectualism and ideology, he urged journalists to educate Nigerians about the country’s social, political and economic landscape for a vibrant and formidable political culture.
Appreciating the roles played by the media during the military in encroachment of democracy and its sustainability in playing the role of opposition despite the fact that they were not voted for or appointed, on Busari urged the media to continue to be objective, non-biased and neutral as expected.
