Democracy watchers and the human
rights community, at the weekend in
Lagos were in agreement that public
accountability in Nigeria was still a
far cry from what it should be.
Besides, they asserted that the
promised change b y the ruling All
Progressive Congress (APC) was a
mirage as there has not been any
difference from what obtained in the
previous administration of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
At the 13th Annual Democracy
Lecture of the Centre for
Constitutionalism and
Demilitarisation (CENCOD),
stakeholders were unanimous that
the citizenry has to be mobilized and
sensitized, to act in self preservation
in other to achieve the desired
change that would bring about public
accountability in the country’s polity.
Chairman, Board of Trustees of
CENCOD, Dr. Sylvester Odion
Akhaine set the ball rolling when in
his introductory remarks, he said
that no substantial change has taken
place because elements of the same
ruling clique had only shuffled
themselves in the last electoral
exercise. According to him, change
involves not a modification of
existing reality but its
transformation.
The question is: what has changed
since May 29? Your answer is as
good as mine. The same old wine in
the same old bottle, apologies to Prof.
Issa Shivji. A cabinet that is solely
dictated by political expediency is in
place; the value of the naira is dipping
with no end in sight; fuel queues are
back; Boko haram insurgents are
free-riding; the legislators are fighting
for juicy committees; macro-
indicators for the economy are not
looking good.”
The government must be ready to
commit class suicide and root with
the masses of people many of whom
marched from Kano to Lagos and
Lagos to Abuja to celebrate ‘change’.
The change that will be meaningful
will entail the negation of the old
order,” he added in the remarks
tagged ‘This Change Must Be
Meaningful’.
Furthermore, he said: “There has to
be structural transformation of the
structure of state and of government.
It will involve strategic
infrastructural development; it will
involve a re-articulation of a
development ideology and the
mentoring of a new elite that will
help unleash the productive capacity
of Nigerians.”
Akhaine suggested among others, the
re-federalisation of the units of the
Nigerian state for self-determination
that entails fiscal autonomy;
Downsize the legislative chambers to
one, a massive ideological orientation
programme to steer the populace in
the desired direction.
To Comrade Wale Abideen of the
Security Watch, there is no difference
between the APC and the PDP arguing
that the problem is not the parties per
se but the politicians because they do
not operate any ideology.
Renowned poet and polemicist, Mr.
Odia Ofeimun, who chaired the
occasion was also of the view that
nothing has changed in the country
between May 29, to date and stressed
the need for the populace to be
properly organized to effect the
desired change.
He lamented that Nigeria has not had
a proper electoral system in
operation saying that “you can not
exclude one third of the electorate
who could not get their permanent
voters’ cards (PVC) and at the same
time you claim to have a free and fair
election”.
Similarly, he queried the rationale
behind the arguments that the
country’s laws are responsible for the
inability of the Buhari’s
administration to deliver, “ I do not
believe that a political party that has
a proper programme should have
anything to worry about the law in
terms of whether it is empowered or
not because everything is provided
for in our laws.“
According to him, “there is nothing in
the way of Mr. President if he wishes
to fight corruption or even to
transform the economy for the good
of all. A man who wishes to fight
corruption must start from the
basics. There is no corrupt Nigerian
today that the law can not handle”.
He said that the elites and the ruling
class were incapable of the task
presently, and advocated an action
on the part of the people. “If we are to
be the ones to respond, how do we
make that possible? … All of us need
to work hard and it means being
prepared to make personal
sacrifices”.
Furthermore he said: “Anybody who
tells you that goodness (for the good
of all) is not possible is actually
asking you to join the evil ones and
this will worsen your predicament”
Ofeimun also argued that poverty
was not responsible for the inability
of the citizenry to be organized for
positive change saying, “organization
is possible but it will require sleepless
nights”.
On his part, the guest lecturer, Dr
Remi Aiyede of the Department of
Political Science, University of Ibadan,
in a paper titled “Institutional Design,
Public Accountability: Nigeria’s
Parliament in Perspective”, said that
it is actually impossible to say who is
responsible for the problem the
country is passing through presently.
According to him, “there is likely to be
no significant change in the mess
Nigeria is presently in essentially
because there has been no difference
between the political party that was
in government before now and the
party that is in power now.”
Besides, he said that the problem is
compounded by the contradictions
within the citizenship as well as by
the issue of poverty in the society.
This, he noted would certainly be a
challenge in mobilizing the citizenry
to ensure public accountability.
In particular, he stressed the need for
ordinary Nigerians to play key roles
to enhance the value of
accountability in the parliament
saying, “These are challenges for all
stakeholders to rise to the occasion …
to ensure the rights of the citizens to
know and intervene. Until this is
done, we can not have the envisaged
public accountability especially in the
parliament.”
Aiyede explained that this is
imperative because the legislature
performs critical functions in
representation, public education,
policy-making and executive
oversight in which it exercises
legitimating and decision influence
that make it stand out as one of the
most significant agent of public
accountability.
He argued that the Nigerian
parliament has not been quite strong
as an institution of political
accountability, but admitted that this
was not caused by the “weak
legislative powers but the character
of politics, the underdevelopment of
parliament due to prolonged military
rule, executive dominance that
renders Nigeria a de facto delegative
democracy for some years after the
country returned to democratic rule.”
Continuing, he said: “Ultimately,
parliament has been able to
guarantee its financial independence
and asserted its oversight powers due
to the elaborate constitutional
provision guaranteeing its
independence and competence. Yet
constitutional provisions that ensure
the powers and independence of
parliament are not sufficient to
ensure performance that can lead to
improvement of public welfare.”
Consequently, he called for the
strengthening of the infrastructure of
parliament and the skills and
competence of members of
parliament to carry out performance
and programme audit, adding that a
lot needed to be done in terms of
constituency representation and
strong commitment to development
that can effectively reduce the
tendency to predation.
The university don opined that
because accountability was central to
the exercise of democratic power,
those who exercise political power
must be answerable for the exercise
of that power. “In democracy
accountability means that the
citizens are to be able to punish those
in public office when they fail to do
their bidding … indeed, exercises of
accountability that exposes misdeeds
but fail to punish misdeeds are mere
acts of window dressing. Violation of
rules do not only need to be detected
they must be punished for
institutions to become strong.”
However, he admitted that the
political environment of politics in
Nigeria was not friendly for
accountability, noting that this is
essentially because politics was not
about the welfare of the people.

www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/12/buharis-govt-no-sign-of-desired-change-say-democracy-watchers/
Lalalasticlala

Change??

Give the masses the balance. They can keep their change.

Lol!
PEJ said they should stone people shouting change. Guess its becoming obvious she made small sense by saying that

They have eyes but they can not see,
They have ears but can not hear and they have heart but can not comprehend the fruition of change the present administration is bringing to bear through carefully planned initiatives and methodological implementations.

Bunch of those crying for us today about the ineffectiveness of the present administration are those who never believe in the administration from the onset.
I asked how can a man who never see what i saw nor believe in my dream understand the interpretation better than i do? That is traversity of intelligence!

It is foolhardy on me to expect a world beyond the world from a government of 7 months that has the mandate of 4 years considering the inherent systematic rot in the land.

I am a believer of the change movement and going by my ideology, i don't quit my belief by the immediate challenges or people's opinion. I can only quit when i have had a learned helplessness.

I am highly optimistic that come 2019 we will celebrate Nigeria and Nigerians under the able leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR.

Well read and well meaning Nigerians are saying there is nothing in reality to show there is any change on ground. They have gone ahead to accurately equate PDP to APC but some zombies will keep shouting PDP destroyed us forgetting that the constituents of APC are the same PDP members. Wailers membership growing daily, soon all will turn to wailing wailers. proudly 5%.

nnachukz:
Well read and well meaning Nigerians are saying there is nothing in reality to show there is any change on ground. They have gone ahead to accurately equate PDP to APC but some zombies will keep shouting PDP destroyed us forgetting that the constituents of APC are the same PDP members. Wailers membership growing daily, soon all will turn to wailing wailers. proudly 5%.

In the fullness of time the change nigerians voted for will manifest, at the moment our "junketeer in chief" is "pighting corruption"...

Aufbauh:
They have eyes but they can not see,
They have ears but can not hear and they have heart but can not comprehend the fruition of change the present administration is bringing to bear through carefully planned initiatives and methodological implementations.

Bunch of those crying for us today about the ineffectiveness of the present administration are those who never believe in the administration from the onset.
I asked how can a man who never see what i saw nor believe in my dream understand the interpretation better than i do? That is traversity of intelligence!

It is foolhardy on me to expect a world beyond the world from a government of 7 months that has the mandate of 4 years considering the inherent systematic rot in the land.

I am a believer of the change movement and going by my ideology, i don't quit my belief by the immediate challenges or people's opinion. I can only quit when i have had a learned helplessness.

I am highly optimistic that come 2019 we will celebrate Nigeria and Nigerians under the able leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR.

7 months of no economic direction and you expect nigerians not to say anything right

Almost 2 months of fuel scarcity and you expect nigerians to smile right

It will be foolish for any one to wish this administration bad or wish they don't deliver, because directly on indirectly the actions or inactions of the present administration will affect the lives of every nigerian....

With that said in the past 7 months there is nothing to show that nigerians will get the much desired change we all clamoured for by the end of 2019, as the saying goes "if you spend 2 years practicing madness in the corner of your room, then how many years will it take you to display the madness to the public"

We are all witnesses to what is happening in Nigeria today, even a blind man can fill the change. It have affect all sector. This show Us the Man buhari is. A pure dictatorship and a pure fulani Man, His main change programme is to bring the opposition down. Through probe, propaganda and lies. In August this year PMB Seeks Senate Approval To Obtain N14.7 bn Loan For Edo State which was blocked by formal finance minister Ngozi Iweala. If PMB bent only on probing past administration that means we're in autocracy system of government. PMB should also probe obj 15 billion dollars power project even PMB Should also probe himself starting from the time he was made Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural resources,  During his tenure as Commissioner, 2.8 billion Naira allegedly went missing from the accounts of the NNPC in Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. This government is not sincere at all and they will end up achieving nothing.

VampireeM:


Your kind is the reason why government acts like god. So we should not criticise him but fold our hands with 7months gone already and be waiting for change. I dont see any reason why the change cant start now.. If you truly believe in PMB's change as you claimed you should motivate him to be up and doing... This govt is stagnant with no view/direction and thats the Truth!

I cannot be so blinded with patriotism that i can't criticise the course i believed.
What I'll not do is to be blackmail by visible frustrated oppositions who never see things from my perspective to run down or frustrate a course that is amenable.
There's a clear difference between a constructive criticism and a criticism that is purely borne out of bitterness, crass ignorance and pessimism.
When you read in between the lines of your critiques you can rightly infer the premises of their position.
I reiterate that when it is time to criticise I'll humbly do but i can't engage myself in senseless and needless criticism for the sake of being counted.

APC=PDP=Corrupt politicians
Who are they deceiving?

We see no changes