Former chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, has described
Nigeria's democracy as one full of tyranny.
He said leadership failure had made the youth lose
confidence in the government.
The ex-EFCC boss said the citizenry should know
that they are in a sinking ship.
He added that Nigerians should all see themselves
as politicians in the storm, who were bound to rescue
the ship.
"The reality of modern Nigeria is one that challenges
us to drop any other identity aside from that of
citizen in our effort to rescue the ship of state from
this stormy sea of chaos," he said.
Ribadu said this in his address delivered at a public
lecture organised by the Students' Representative
Council of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria,
Kaduna State on Saturday.Ribadu said, "But the place of the youth in our
democratic space is jeopardised when the elite in our
state decide to model our government after a
gerontocracy--a government by the old and for the
elderly. Ours is a system in which new and modern
ideas are denied a chance to grow and mature.
"The tragedy of our democracy is that it is one in
which the yearnings of the youth are stamped down
in order to perpetuate a tyranny of interests. Tyranny
it is when a certain slim range of people impose their
private interests on the majority; tyranny it is when
the agents of change are left on the cliffs of
unemployment, poverty, insecurity, substandard
education and, worse still, policies destroyed by our
heritage of corruptions.
"We are doomed as a nation the moment the youth
get hoodwinked by the bickering of bitter politicians
who ride to relevance on sentiments that only inspire
distrust among citizens. My experience so far in
politics has taught me that age does not guarantee
maturity to responsibly play the role of a patriot in
an atmosphere of tensed political antagonisms."
He noted that the political storm included inter-
ethnic, inter-religious and inter-regional clashes.
Ribadu said, "The challenge ahead is enormous. The
challenge is for us to form networks that will engage
and destroy the evil missions of the exclusionists
and agents of anarchy among us. In a time of
anarchy, everybody is a politician. This is a time of
anarchy.
"In a time like this, we should have no identities
other than ordinary Citizen. We are citizens of a
world challenged, a people confused and abused, a
nation whose resources is misused by leaders whose
major worry is the amount of dollars in their bank
accounts. The situation is one of psychological
abuse, existential abuse. My antidote for this
monstrous reality is also psychological.
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