WHY QUALITY GOVERNANCE IS A BIG DEAL IN NIGERIA

Nigeria is said to have been bereft of quality governance by its ruling political class. Citizens sometimes have to literally beg to have what is supposed to be their rights given to them by the politicians. Other times the media tend to magnify what should ordinarily be a given, in other climes. The usual response among citizens when someone challenges the purpose of such news report is, ‘Ah! s/he has tried; others are not doing as much’. As new governments settle at the federal and states levels, I have thought about the reason for this situation, and come up with some views.

LACK OF VISION: This is the hall mark of leadership. However many political leaders get into positions of leadership without a clear vision of what they intend to do. What happens is that they begin to rely on the opinions of their aides and political agents who would always ensure that whatever the leader does benefits them and not the people.

CITIZENS’ IGNORANCE OF THEIR RIGHTS: Most citizens do not really know what their rights are. Governments tend to take advantage of this and offer whatever they liked as though they were doing them a favour.

NON JUSTICIABLE NATURE OF CHAPTER 2 OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTION: Chapter II of the Constitution is titled Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. It consists of 12 sections, from section 13 to section 24. Among others, it provides for thirteen (13) key categories of rights, which by section 13 are to be observed and applied by all authorities and persons who exercise legislative, executive or judicial powers.  Some people have argued that the weakness of this chapter is that citizens cannot sue the government for not providing these things, so government can afford not to obey the constitution because they are not legally bound. So even when the citizens are aware of the right, they only hope and pray the governments do something about it.

SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS WORK TO ACHIEVE NOT NECESSARILY TO BENEFIT THE PEOPLE:  There is no affection for the people. Every government comes to power seeking to do a few things the administration would use to approve of itself, because government tends to be structured around an individual. What should be done is not based on what people really need, but on what would give the officials involved some percentage of the contract pay. Execution tends to drag, because it is not being done to make life easier for the people. It can end whenever the contractor chooses to complete it. Some are completed especially in the first tenure to be pointers during second tenure campaigns.

SCARCITY MINDSET: Because of poor living conditions, people are ready to jump at whatever is thrown at them by the politicians. Sometimes politicians do little or nothing till next election. During campaign they just distribute food items and cash to the people. People accept these things saying, ‘it is our money’. So the politician believes that the people would always accept whatever s/he brings, no matter how small.

COST OF CAMPAIGN: Recently a member of Lagos state House of Assembly was quoted to have said that most politicians take loans to run their campaigns. He said this to kick against the call for pay cut for legislators, insisting that they need the money to settle the debts. A friend also told me how a certain politician who won election told him that they would usually offset any debts they incurred during campaigns before thinking of what to do for the people.