The Fourth Republic has failed, says Sagay

Our Fourth Republic democracy is a complete failure in the sense that the very first  threshold of what constitute democracy has failed. That’s free, fair and credible election. Since the inception of the Fourth Republic, we have not had any election that can be described as free, fair and credible. What we have had are very bad elections, extremely fraudulent and completely overwhelmed by rigging.

Though, some elections were not as bad as the others, but all bad is the degree of vice  that they contained. For example, the worst elections we have ever had is the 2007 elections. Everybody knows that. The 2011 elections is an improvement on the 2007. But event  that one it is still a long way off  from what can be described as credible. So that’s the beginning.

Also, if one take a look of the practice of democracy itself, one would see that there is a lot of immaturity in the behaviour of the political actors. If you look at the politicians at the National Assembly, they behave like little children who have seen ice-cream and lolly-pop. They voted fo themselves high income and remuneration, the highest amount of money ever received at any legislature in the whole world. They were so  immersed in seeing money that they forgot that is Nigeria’s money, not legislature’s money. So, we have a senator earning about 1.7 million dollars a year. When by contrast, his American counter part is earning just over two hundred thousand dollars a year. The President of America earns just four hundred thousand dollars a year. So, one can see not just the ironies but how ridiculous it is.

The orientation is very childish and infantile self interest. The politicians are there to promote their material  interest without any consideration for the country. The teeming population of this country which  currently stands at well over  one hundred and fifty million are earning less than a dollar per day. The fact that a senator earns 1.7 million dollar, those in that one hundred million bracket are earning three hundred and sixty-five dollars. Therefore, one can see the magnitude of the impunity and criminal misconduct that is involved.

At the executive level, it’s all the same thing. We have heard a lot of scandals although not as overt as that of the National Assembly. The list is endless. However, few of them included, pension scam, petrol subsidy, the recent one, the Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and so on. The country is overwhelmed by corruption. Democracy has brought nothing but misery to everybody. It was quite unfortunate  that  for one year, fellow Nigerians collected a whooping sum of 1.17 trillion naira from the federal government when they did not supply any petrol. That was the decree of decay and degeneration that 13 years of democracy has brought to us, Nigerians.

Though, they might be one or two things to celebrate. But if one looks at the general atmosphere, the roads are all bad. With the three successive democratic adminstration, the power situation got worse. Despite the huge amount of money budgeted for power, the situation remains static. Since Professor Barth Nnaji became the Minister, the power situation has deteriorated to an incredible level inspite of all the noise he’s making. The roads are the same, schools, universities, hospitals are all in bad state. The National Hospital in Abuja which is supposed to be the best in the country today, I understand is in no way any better than a morgue. If you have any serious illness, you dare not go there for treatment otherwise, you won’t come back alive.

Today, every Nigerian is now going to India for treatment of one ailment or the other. The Indians capitalised on our foolishness to establish a huge laboratory in Oshodi, Lagos in order to make things easy for us. Also, South Africa has established a similar laboratory in Lagos. Somehow, our government is incapable of establishing anything that is enduring and beneficial to Nigerians. I’m afraid, there is nothing positive about Nigeria’s thirteenth years of democracy. For me, it is thirteen wasted years. The wrong people have been in power and it will continue to be so as long as the wrong people continue to remain in power.

Structure of political parties