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Demand for Democracy in Nigeria

December 30, 2008
In a series of lectures delivered in Monrovia, Liberia, Dr. Noel Woodroffe, President of Congress-WBN, addressed the issue of Core Imperative for Successful Nation Development and identified the demand for democracy as one of the tectonic movements or shifts taking place in the relational architecture of the earth. He noted that democracy as a political requirement carries with it a deeper philosophical impact of human empowerment on a mass scale entailing wider dialogue. This is about increased surfacing of defining opinions from below rather than imposition of narrow views from above, the concept on which Barack Obama built his political campaign. In a changing world where shifts in human consciousness and human organizations have already occurred, he stated that developments towards the future especially in West African nations, demands that these shifts be deliberately and consciously taken into account and utilized. He advised that to make appreciable impact, we are to embark on visionary thinking and developmental planning and that radical new possibility for change and development must be created by our own efforts towards local economic stimulation, social change and developments and local political initiatives. For lectures that were delivered in 2005 in Monrovia, Liberia, Barack Obama’s Democratic Party primaries Democratic and Presidential Election campaigns in America which both resulted in resounding victories appears to have been lifted from the said lectures. It is beyond dispute that the political initiatives developed and implemented by Barack Obama and his campaign team were radical and have resulted in profound changes in the American and global political landscape, and even now the full ramifications of these victories are still unfolding. How else can we explain that a black man with a father from Kenya, Africa and a while mother from Kansas, one of the heartlands of white America and who is not your classic American male model could overwhelm and eventually dismantle the Clinton political dynasty in the Democratic Party? How else could the Obama team have taken on the dreaded Republican Party campaign machine and the ultimate American war hero John McCain and his bit bull lipstick wearing running mate' Sarah Palin, and in the process engineer one of the most decisive Congressional victories for the Democratic Party in 2008? How else could a man named Barack Hussein Obama, all exotics names and sharing a middle name with the most wanted terrorist on the face of planet earth, and who has lived in Indonesia and Hawaii, win such an overwhelming victory with votes from every demographic group? Many will claim that this could only have happened in the United States of America with its long history of democracy and public enlightenment and they are probably right, but they will also have to concede that what Barack Obama accomplished is also a first of its kind with a certainty of a place in history. The challenge is that in Nigeria we can have our own uniquely crafted first of its kind in the political sector, i.e. that we can have elections in Nigeria where the results are determined strictly by the votes of Nigerians cast on election day and accurately collated by electoral officials. Again, many Nigerians will be quick to point out why an election determined by the votes of Nigerians is not possible in Nigeria and why any political initiative in that regard is doomed to fail as they will recall how IBB annulled what is adjudged to be the best election in the history of Nigeria, i.e. June 12, 1993. They will point to how the last three general elections held in Nigeria, i.e. 1999, 2003, and 2007, have produced outcomes which did not reflect the will of Nigerians and that the judiciary cannot be counted on at all times to address election petitions even in instances where elections did not take place but results were announced. We are not in 1993, 1999, 2003 or 2007 but in 2008 and going to 2009, the season in which the White House, the most powerful seat of government on planet earth, will be occupied by the most improbable and audacious man that has walked the land of America, Barack Obama. A season in which the influence of the mastermind and architect of the 2003 and 2007 general elections Olusegun Obasanjo will have waned and in which we will have more staggered elections due to judicial pronouncements with more states in the South West and South East likely to end up in opposition hands. A season in which the economy of Nigeria is expected to proceed on a sustained bullish run due to the global economic downturn and the falling price of crude oil, which will further impoverish Nigerians and add to their frustrations, although the squandering of state resources by those in high places is not expected to abate. A season in which the gains of the Nigerian professional and middle class in the last few years would almost be completely eroded and in which Mr. Yar'Adua will be president of Nigeria and has promised to embark on electoral reforms, the report of which has already being presented to him. If there ever was an opportune season for Nigerians to take their political destiny into their own hands and demand democracy in Nigeria, the period between 2009 and 2011 will be that season, where all the forces of good and justice have been rightly aligned in favor of Nigerians. What is required are the innovative local political initiatives, some of which are already in existence but requiring more effort, to bring about this radical new possibility. Nigerians, the ball is definitely in our court. http://hope2011.blogspot.com/ Man is not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out what he has to do – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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