What effects will the questions have? Nigerians may have their say but the ruling class will have their way. I have not seen anyone who could tell me how citizens can hold their president, governors and other elected officials accountable.
Could anyone kindly educate me?
I heard Tibunu the other day telling Nigerians to ask their governors questions about how their states money is being spent. I hadn’t heard anything so ridiculous. This is same Tibunu who has never submitted himself to interrogation by the citizens he sits over their collective destiny. He has never, both during his 2023 campaigns and presently, availed them the townhall opportunity to directly ask him certain questions concerning his stewardship. So how does he think the governors will oblige their subjects such rights? How and what exactly does he mean by citizens holding their governors accountable?
For me it doesn’t make sense to say that, apart from statutory federal allocations, he has no mechanism for ensuring that other grants, aids, palliatives, etc that he gives to the governors are judiciously utilized. Why is that so? Some governors even challenged him to the fact that they did not receive some of the assistance he claimed to have given them. It is alleged that most of the funds he advances to the governors are not for developmental but for political patronage to support his bid for a second tenure, or to support his destructive actions and inactions aimed at destroying our little resemblance of democracy.
The incontrovertible fact about all this accountability hype remains that a free, fair, credible and transparent electoral system is the most potent weapon with which accountability will be demanded from elected officials.
Leadership is by example. Who holds Tibunu accountable that he is asking the state indigenes to hold their governors accountable?
The major reason the political class gets away with embezzlement and impunity is lack of a transparent electoral system by which the citizens speak louder with their votes. Any incumbent who knows that the people will vote him out if he doesn’t perform will strive to satisfy the yearnings of the people except he is sure to sacrifice his future political ambitions on the altar of corruption.
Unfortunately this same Tibunu, who claims he fought for democracy and that he is deepening it, has not made any declaration that he would ensure that the era of electoral banditry is over, himself being the proponent of grab-snatch-and-run political ideology. Since he took over he has not sent any ExecutiveBill to NASS to amend the ElectoralAct to ensure that the citizen’s vote counts. It is such a shame really.
The real democracy is one that is predicated on the power and will of the people as clearly stated in the definition of democracy. Any system short of this is not democracy but ordinary civilian rule, or a poor resemblance of democracy. I would have been surprised if Tibunu had declared a state of emergency on electoral reforms same way, same occasion and on same podium he declared removal of subsidy. He cannot hunt with the hares and run with the hounds, having been the proponent of grab-snatch-and-run rhetoric. There can be no accountability from elected officials if the fear of facing the angst of the people at elections is not there, especially where the anti-graft agencies are not independent but compromised.
The benefits of free, fair, credible and transparent electoral system are enormous:
1 it ensures that corrupt politicians are voted out whenever they seek return to political offices or seek further political relevance.
2 politicians are made to put in their best because of the morbid fear of not returning to their seats or for future political engagements.
3 corruption is eradicated because elected politicians are given the Hobson’s Choice of being accountable to the people they represent.
4 avoidable deaths on our highways are prevented because funds earmarked for construction of quality roads will be judiciously utilized, which otherwise would lead to citizens deaths on account of bad roads and the attendant criminalities such as robbery and kidnapping.
5 avoidable deaths on account of ill-equipped hospitals or inadequate and very poor healthcare delivery system will be a thing of the past. Citizens die because electoral fraud affords embezzlers of our common patrimony access to loot funds meant to build quality hospitals and provide quality and affordable healthcare delivery.
Our presidents and other public servants will be made to seek treatment locally rather than expend so much foreign currencies as capital flight to seek same abroad.
6 another benefit is the ability of government to curb insecurity, because funds meant to purchase military and defence hardware will no longer be embezzled by corrupt leaders. Citizens will no longer live under fear of non-state actors and being slaughtered like fowls on daily basis.
7 electoral fraud is same thing as murder because it denies the citizens their rights to vote in good leaders while throwing up looters who loot and empty the treasury through which millions of death could be avoided via good governance and judicious use of the funds.
In conclusion, having outlined the benefits of free, fair, credible and transparent electoral system as a special purpose vehicle for accountability by elected officials, there is need for concerted effort to be made in mounting pressure on the president himself to walk his talk of asking citizens to hold their governors accountable by declaring a state of emergency on electoral reforms to empower the citizens to be able to do exactly what he exhorts and implores them to do.
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