Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that the nation’s current political trajectory would not produce the right leaders for the country.
Obasanjo said this in a keynote address delivered at the Rivers State Government-sponsored 2023 Port Harcourt International Conference themed, ‘Deepening Democratic Culture and Institutions for Sustainable Development and Security in Nigeria’, that held in Port Harcourt on Thursday.
In his paper titled, “Respecting the Principles of Democracy”, the former president said, “Without retracing our political steps to the right direction, the current process will either not produce the right leaders or it will leave so many broken blocks on the path to governance and attract resources and energy away from the task of rebuilding Nigeria and consolidating our democratic practice.
“The result will be democratic quagmire, increased corruption, insecurity and survival of the fittest, richest and better connected with little or no recognition of merits. The implications and cost of such a scenario to our present and future can best be imagined. I pray that God will grant us the wisdom to do what is right for our country and people at all times and more so now.”
Obasanjo noted that noted that Nigeria’s democracy has gone through twists, dives and turns since political independence, adding that the best of the country’s history has been the sustenance of democracy since the military transfer of power to an elected government in 1999.
He, however, observed that there may be reasons to doubt how much lessons the leaders and followers have drawn from the country’s past and how far they were willing to go to deepen, widen and strengthen democracy and democratic practice.
The former president declared that the ways in which the political class have practised democracy have deepened contradictions, negative coalitions, distrust, disloyalty and unpatriotic tendencies within and between communities and constituencies all over the country.
He stated that this means that there are a deep structural and philosophical problems that must be deal with.
Obasanjo asserted that if the practice of democracy is superficial and opportunistic and it is designed to pursue a struggle of limited objectives, it would precipitate variants of fractured engagements that cannot address structural and philosophical contradictions and challenges.
“In fact, the order of the day would be community against community, religion against religion, leader against leader.
“Ordinary citizens are then dragged into the directionless, meaningless and opportunistic personal or narrow ambitions of leaders.
“The end result will be confusion, diffusion, distraction and possibly leading to separation and disintegration,” he warned.
He stressed that democracy is possible in Nigeria and the people have the capacity to build a culture of democratisation.
However, he insisted that Nigerians must recognise and accept the fact that it is an evolutionary process with principles.
In his opening remarks, former Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman of the occasion, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said the theme of the conference addresses the imperative of enhancing democratic governance to the benefit of Nigerians and the country.
Fayemi pointed to the scholarly assertions of late Claude Ake, on feasibility and possibility of democracy wherein there has to be enduring democratic culture and democracy being structured to be developmental in nature.
He observed that Nigeria’s democracy is bedevilled by lack of party-based politics, issue-based politicking, untamed political violence, winner-take-all mentality, growing influence of money in politics, exploitation of loophole to subvert the will of the people and social media and spread of fake news.
“Though, there are some political milestones achieved since 1999, there is no doubt that we still have a long way to go in building a robust culture of power and politics that is both democratic and sustaining,” Fayemi said.
As part of the event, there was the unveiling of the book, “Bridging Rivers”, under the chairmanship of former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili.