Posted by By OLA AGBAJE on
National Chairman of Action Congress (AC), Chief Bisi Akande, has declared that Nigeria cannot be described as democratic in its present state.
National Chairman of Action Congress (AC), Chief Bisi Akande, has declared that Nigeria cannot be described as democratic in its present state.
Akande gave the verdict in Lagos on Monday while delivering this year's annual lecture of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja branch.
Speaking on the topic: Democracy, Leadership and The Nigerian Nation, Akande insisted that development will continue to elude the nation until it fully embraces in practice, true ethos of democracy and its norms.
According to the former governor of Osun State, 'democracy and development are always found to be two inseparable companions."
'Successful development in education, in arts and culture, in technological and management training, in commerce and industry, in basic infrastructure and in security management, is dependent on informed democracy," he said.
Explaining the true concept of democracy, Akande noted that true democracy cannot be rationalised and defined according to the whims and caprice of parochial views of a few African leaders to give it varieties of meanings.
Faulting the attempt at giving local definition to the concept of democracy, Akande posited that democracy has universal meaning and application.
'If a people choose democracy, they must equip themselves to observe the tenets. I can claim without any apology that what we are practising in Nigeria is indefinable because it is nothing that is capable of bringing happiness to the people," he said.
Speaking on the heels of the recently constituted Electoral Reform Committee, Akande said award of arbitrary figures to powerful contestants irrespective of their acceptability or not should be totally eliminated in future elections.
He called for the amendment of the electoral laws in a way that would make all political parties have representatives in the Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) while the funding of the body should be from the consolidated funds.
Former Oyo State governor, Alhaji Rasheed Ladoja, speaking to the press at the occasion, debunked insinuation that he has abandoned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Commenting on the face-off between workers and Governor Alao Akala, Ladoja said the state government could conveniently pay the workers the salary increment he approved before he left office.
He explained that the state government would only require 53 per cent of its allocation from federation account to settle workers' wages without tampering with its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Reacting to news making the rounds that he had been declared wanted by the police, Ladoja fingered his successor as the mastermind of the move to embarrass him, stating that, Akala was using his influence in the police as an ex-officer of the force to harass him.