Alhaji Lawal Adamu Usman is the National Coordinator Peace Foundation of Nigeria and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna state. In this interview with ABDULRAHEEM AODU, the senatorial aspirant for Kaduna Central said 19 years of uninterrupted democracy has not yielded much development except corruption and violence.
What will you say are the achievements of 19 years of stable democracy in Nigeria? Nigeria is celebrating Democracy Day and 19 years of enjoying stable democratic governance, free from military intervention. To me, it is supposed to be a day of sober refl ections, a day of self-judgment and reviewing our achievements and failures, certainly not a day of celebrations. The reason is quite obvious. First of all, let’s look at what the democracy has brought for us in terms of development. Does the democracy made any significant change in the life of Nigerians as compared to military regime? What do we gain from democracy that we should be celebrating or jubilating? And what are we doing to sustain democracy in Nigeria today? I think these are some pertinent questions we should be asking ourselves before celebrating Democracy Day. The two concepts are different though interrelated. Democracy Day may not necessarily mean overall development; it only signifi ed an aspect of political development, while development in its real sense refl ects the entire progress attained by a country within a specifi c period. A country could attain significant level of economic development without necessarily following the socalled western democracy. Development can be achieved in any system of government depending on the paradigm and approach the country employed. You can list many countries in the world today, especially in Asia and Middle East that attained significant level of development but did not follow this type of democracy. So, we must correct the impression that democracy means civil rule or non-military rule. The major differences between democracy and undemocratic government are the election of leaders by choice of people, application of rule of law, as well as enforcement of fundamental human rights. In Nigeria, unlike other countries in the world, we are yet to define the kind of democracy we are following, hence majority see our democracy only within the context of mere civil rule. This perhaps is due to our peculiarity in culture, traditions, ignorance or even selfish interest of political elites. How do you rate the benefits of stable democracy to Nigerians since 1999? Nigeria has achieved stable democratic governance within the last 19 years, but our state of development to some extent is retrogressive, while to a large extent, makes little or no progress in both physical and human development compared to other developing countries. It is sad indeed that since that period, the country’s democracy provide nothing but the culture of corruption and high rate of insecurity characterized by lawlessness, ethnic and communal violence like Boko Haram, cattle rustling and socalled herdsmen rampage. Our democracy brought nothing but structural unemployment where working class are left jobless and more are retrenched due to collapse of industries or deliberate government policy. Our democracy encourages political thuggery where many potential youth are dwelling into drugs. Nigeria is witnessing worst situation of insecurity since civilian took over government in 1999, more than ever before, this is a bad signal to our democracy, especially as we have accused military for human rights abuse. Until recently, Nigeria is ranked among countries with highest corrupt profi le, with quantum of trillions of naira said to have been stolen by political office holders in the past administrations. So, tell me is this democracy or “lootercracy”. How will you assess the role of political parties in Nigerian democracy? Political parties are major institutions in any democracy. It is unfortunate that since the failure of General Babangida’s platonic democracy, we could not have political parties based on certain ideology and principles. The 1999 political parties are more or less of SDP and NRC. The parties also constitute part of our democratic problem today. We need ideological political parties that would serve not only as platform of winning elections but also give voters basis for implementation of development programmes. I mean political parties with manifestos not schedule of programmes. It is the absence of these principles in our party system that is the challenge to our democracy. A governor can pocket parties for two years without elections or he decides who is to be what in political contest. How would you rate three years of Buhari administration in terms of human and physical development? It is difficult to assess government that just came to rectify problems. These problems are inherited so our concerns are not the problems themselves but the solution to the problems. To be honest and candid, Buhari administration had only attempted to solve the Nigeria problems but it is yet to solve any. We still have crises of Boko Haram and other related insurgency. Corruption is common among Nigerians especially common men. Corruption is being fought at the elite level among politicians or power elite. The level of poverty is relatively at the increasing rate and lack of common unity among the ruling party is at its peak. When you have these lingering problems unsolved, it is difficult to give a government credit, but you can give Buhari a pass mark despite the challenges before him. What do you think is responsible for the low performance of Buhari administration especially in the area of development? This is a wide question to answer. Let’s look at the problem from two perspectives, one from Buhari as an individual and secondly as President of Nigeria. Everybody knows Buhari as a no-nonsense man, honest, brave soldier and patriotic Nigerian. These are some of the obvious qualities that made Nigeria including myself to vote for Buhari as president. Unfortunately, our expectations based on these qualities begin to diminish as the people surrounding him when he became president, including some governors are characters who are misleading him. Look at how our APC turned out to be; disorganized and undemocratic to some extent. So, it is difficult for any person to run democracy with these kind of people whose majority cherish nothing but injustice and unfair play. As an aspirant, what do you think should be the way forward for Nigerian democracy? Sometimes, my views are misinterpreted by opponents as controversial. I joined politics to serve my country and I feel I have a lot to contribute to my people, so I would not mind whatever one may say about me. My candid opinion about the democracy in Nigeria is that the system requires total commitment of all politicians to serve people. We always travel to developing countries and we have seen how they love their people and the country, so why can’t we behave the same way. We must change the attitude of joining politic for money or wealth. Our leaders must focus on community development oriented projects. We must ensure internal democracy in our political party structure and we must ensure the enforcement of Rule of Law. These are the impediment in Nigeria democracy which I believed once they are solved, Nigerians would reap the benefits and the dividend of democracy
