Nigerians are afraid to impeach the President: Despite the economic, security and several other failures of Muhammad Buhari, Nigerians are afraid to call on their elected representatives to impeach President Buhari. Instead they are waiting until 2019 to attempt to vote him out with their voters cards. The problem with this calculation is elections can be rigged. The bigger problem is what if Nigerians elect someone worse than Buhari into leadership. This same political permutation cost us Jonathan whom Nigerian thought was incompetent and brought us Buhari who is taking incompetency to new heights. Nigerians cannot continue to wait 4 years to correct the mistakes they may make at the ballot box.
Nigerians are afraid to protest: For some reason, Nigerians are afraid to hit the streets and call change. The only protests that work in Nigeria are politically or celebrity sponsored protests. Once the protest is not being sponsored by a moneybads politician, then Nigerians will not partake because they are afraid. Human rights abuses are a stock in trade for Nigerian security agencies and it makes sense that many do not want to lose their lives because they are calling for change. However in the absence of protests, any sitting government can pretend they are performing and are loved by the people, which is usually never the case.
Nigerians do not recall their lawmakers: Nigerians hardly recall their lawmakers. This is a practice of democracy that is hardly practiced anywhere democracy is entrenched, however it is a power the people indeed have access to. If Nigerians were able to recall their lawmakers, it would make legislators review their salaries and take other people oriented policies into serious consideration. However most Nigerians do not understand the power they have over their legislators and lack the will to wield this power.
Nigerians allow major political parties to produce mediocre candidates: Due to concepts like zoning, power rotation and power rationing, Nigerians have allowed leadership of political parties to provide presidential aspirants that are either incompetent, feeble or a combination of both like President Buhari in order to ensure power is held in a particular region of the country or the other. This does not bode well for Nigeria as there is brain drain. By excluding candidates based on religion, or ethnicity, we ensure that Nigeria maintains a system that is not merit-based and can offer no real tangibles to the Nigerian people.
Nigerians are afraid to call for restructuring: With the exception of the South-East, all other regions are not as vocal as possible about the need for restructuring. Nigeria needs to be restructured but not enough Nigerians are making the call for a change in the Federal system we currently practice which is basically Fiscal Federalism and detrimental to the progress of the Nigerian people.
In summary, an intelligence agency once said, Nigerians are docile people who will take almost anything you throw at them with a smile. They concluded that the chance of a revolution in Nigeria was slim to none. Fela Anikulapo Kuti captioned it well with a song “suffering and smiling”. The average Nigerian lives below the poverty line and is seemingly unperturbed by his condition. As far as he can wait 4 years for rice and garri to vote in another democratic blunder. Meanwhile the salary of a full time banker in Nigeria can be less than that of a street sweeper in any developed country. What a shame!