DEMOCRACY DAY 2022

NIGERIAN POLITICIANS AND THE MASSES,  ARE WE STILL BRETHREN?

There can be no democracy without truth. There can be no fact without discussion, there can be no change without opportunity. Without opportunity, there can be no advancement.

-Casting a ballot is the best way to make a change in a democracy.

Let us use democracy to make the world a better place

Challenges to true democracy: Poverty and poor education 

POVERTY and poor education continue to be two impeding factors to true democracy in Nigeria. Democracy as a concept of governance finds the best expression when the masses and members of the grassroots fully participate in the decision-making process, without any influence whatsoever.

No doubt, politicians have continually exploited the poverty of the electorates to secure votes. A vast majority of poor Nigerians utilize election periods not as a medium of expressing their political freewill, but as an opportunity to partake in the sharing of rice, bread, and other food items. Others, through patience or violence, take receipt of the monies shared by politicians at elections.

People are influenced to vote by temporal gifts given by the rich and not the ideologies or programmes. Poor people’s votes are based on temporal gratification. As long as poverty persists, it will render democracy futile. But if people are removed from poverty and empowered economically, they will vote based on who has the best ideology that can better their lives and that of posterity.

Even in intraparty democracy, the rich often buy their way up to adoption levels; so we end up having people elected not because they have the ability to serve but because of being rich. They get elected over the poor who may have best ideologies.”