Thursday, 25 May 2017
Tuesday, 23 May 2017
THE FLAWS OF OUR DEMOCRACY
By Dr. Ahmed Adamu
This
month, Nigeria will celebrate Democracy Day on the 29th of May, but
I have concerns about whether the democracy we practice is the best option for
us. First, democracy allows everybody above the age of 18 to vote, irrespective
of their education, knowledge or political awareness. This is one of the flaws
of our democracy, not everyone is informed of the requirement or competence for
leadership, not everyone has the skills to interpret information presented by
candidates, not everyone has the correct mindset or upright ideology in making
the right decision, and if everyone including the uninformed are handed over
the ballot, we risk the chances of ignorant choices.
Therefore,
casting a vote is a skill that everyone must acquire, and if you do not have
the skills, you will not be qualified to have a ballot. It is just like handing
over guns to everyone, you will risk giving the gun to an uninformed person,
and he may end up shooting himself or shooting the good guys. Just like not
everyone should lead, not everyone should vote too. If a child is denied the
ballot because it was believed that a child may not be well informed or acquire
the necessary knowledge to participate in the voting, likewise even among
adults, there are those who are not informed or have the knowledge to guide
their decisions. Some children may have
the knowledge, but they will also be denied the chance to vote. So, there has
to be clear requirements to qualify to vote in a democracy, especially in
developing countries where there is mass illiteracy or unawareness, which
reflects in the ballot and can cause the poor selection of leaders, resulting
in bad governance.
Uninformed
citizens can easily be manipulated and used through bribery, bogus promises, or
intimidation to make the wrong choices. The votes of uninformed citizens may
not necessary reflect their own opinions, which is against the principles of
democracy. So, some sections of society need to be stripped of the voting
chance. However, highly informed and educated citizens will have fewer
tendencies of being used or manipulated. In some elections, a leader can emerge
even with a 1% margin, and it does not matter if that margin was as a result of
a vote from an uninformed voter. That one percent will also make the other
major 49% voiceless. Uninformed voters
can decide the course of the ship of our democracy. Giving uninformed citizens
the ballot is like giving unprofessional the wheel of a ship at the middle of a
sea during a storm, how would they steer the ship? But, if you hand over the
ship to a qualified person, they will handle the situation and direct the ship
to a safer route. Even in courts, we don’t allow every citizen to give
verdicts, a select few competent judges are the ones we trust to give verdicts,
because we believe they have the skills in making a sound and fair decision,
and we accept their judgments.
This
also applies to candidates contesting in our elections, once you have a lower
educational qualification, irrespective of the quality of that education or the
depth of your knowledge (especially political and economic affairs), you are
free to contest. It is just like an aeroplane, not everyone deserves to fly the
plane, if someone who is not an expert stepped up to fly the plane, no one will
agree to that. So, why should we allow those who are not expert to steer a country's
direction, candidates must have certain strict criteria to contest. We cannot
risk allowing people with shallow knowledge of politics and economics or
education to stand for elections, if we do that we put ourselves at risk of
voting in incompetent leaders. If a private company wants to appoint a new
MD/CEO, they will shortlist those with the best qualification in terms of
knowledge and ability to meet the company’s targets. So, why can't we shortlist
the best candidates for leading our respective countries, why do we accommodate
incompetence in our shortlists? That is why we have to raise the requirements
for who we allow to contest in our elections.
To
achieve this, we have to change the system of nominations for elective
positions; first, candidates must be allowed to stand for election
independently without standing under a political party. Political parties must
allow every member of their party to cast their votes in the selection of their
party’s candidates, instead of few people, i.e. delegates. These delegates are
targets of manipulation, bribery, and deception because there is no strict
requirement for their selection, and once they are manipulated, the entire
country is manipulated too. So, for immediate remedy, parties must open the
selection of their candidates to every member of the party. Any party that does
that will for sure have more appeal to the people. Political parties must be forced to reduce the
cost of nominations for political positions, to give room for competent candidates
who may not afford high nomination fees.
Restricting
candidacy to parties is what produces leaders without ideas. Shehu Musa Ya’adua
once said, “Our major problem as a country is that we elect people that we know
are not competent, and leave out those that we know are competent”. One of our
African orators, Harmon Okinyo once said, “the problem with Africa is that
those that have ideas, have no power, and those with power, have no ideas. Once
Africans are presented with the option to vote between those with ideas and
those without, they will vote for those without the ideas”. So those who are
the 'good ones' don’t get the chance. The good ones do not have the money to
outcompete the bad ones, and the bad ones use illiteracy and an uninformed
electorate to find their way, and that is why it is dangerous to give the
ballot to the uninformed citizens.
So,
let us have an intellectual democracy and not democracy by birth right. Another
issue with democracy is the frequent change of leaders, and giving them
absolute powers to change the course of governance. This creates inconsistency
and the desire to accumulate wealth within the limited span of their tenure,
unlike a constitutional monarch, which prevents continued rent seeking from
rotating powerful leaders. Frequent change of governments and elections
attracts huge costs, which short-change the citizens. Monarchs tend to take
responsibility for success or failure of their countries, because their faces
or images are at stakes, and they want to command loyalty and love from their
people.
To
ensure informed choices and better selection of leaders, Islamic, traditional
or new systems of democracy can be looked into. We can consider electing voting
representatives in each district or ward, who are knowledgeable, respected,
experienced and reputable. These voting representatives will cast their votes
on behalf of their people, and will undertake by oath to be fair and just in
their selections. They will be like judges, who will use facts and evidence to
give a verdict without sentiment, fear or favour. All candidates must then
present themselves and their visions to earn the votes of the voting
representatives. This will give a chance to credible candidates from unpopular
parties, marginalised ethnicities or sections of society, because it is about
who is more competent. The voting representatives will vote according to their
conscience and conviction, and they have to report back to their respective
communities and explain the justification for their choices. So, they will be
the judges, who make verdicts on our behalf. This kind of system is found in
Islamic election processes, where few selected respected members of society are
chosen to select a leader. It is also found in the traditional system of
democracy, where few selected king makers choose the king on behalf of the
people.
Finally,
the above system can be merged with direct democracy, where a proportion of the
votes can be allocated to the citizens and the bigger proportion to the voting
representatives. We can say, voting representatives have a 60% weighted
proportion of the votes, and 40% goes to the citizens. If a candidate wins, the
entire votes of the voting representatives can emerge. A candidate can still
win if he has the majority of the overall votes, combining proportions from
both voting representatives and the citizens.
Dr.
Ahmed Adamu
Petroleum Economist and
Development Expert,
First-Ever Global President of
Commonwealth Youth Council,
University Lecturer (Economics),
Umaru Musa Yar’adua University, Katsina.
(08034458189,
ahmadadamu1@gmail.com)
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