From Sunday 15th to Sunday 29th January 2011, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be conducting Nigeria’s Voters Registration exercise. This is her fresh effort to set up a credible voter register which we believe is a key factor in enabling credible elections.
From Sunday 15th to Sunday 29th January 2011, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be conducting Nigeria’s Voters Registration exercise. This is her fresh effort to set up a credible voter register which we believe is a key factor in enabling credible elections.
I do hope every eligible adult will go register and mobilise others in your circle of interaction to do same. It has been encouraging to see the mobilisation taking place already which seems to suggest there will be a good turnout. I have always believed that Nigerians will willingly and actively participate in any process that will be transparent, non-violent and respect & uphold their freedom.
However, this is the easy part. Because we believe a good Voters Registration exercise will set us on course for good political leadership through credible elections, we are easily motivated to participate in this exercise. As my focus is always on nation-building, I want to look at participation from a wider perspective.
The majority of Nigerians believe that the progress of our nation lies solely on having credible elections because that will enable us vote in good leaders. It is this thinking that has seen a lot of emphasis on the Voters Registration exercise and while I completely agree with the mobilisation, I believe we need to rethink this view.
The need to have this rethink is because the premise that nation-building occurs solely or mainly through political leadership is incorrect. I believe the building of a nation occurs mostly outside the political sphere in families, communities, churches, mosques, places of work and schools. It is the overflow of these that impacts on the political scene. Besides, credible elections do not always translate into credible political leaders (I covered this in my article Credible Elections or Credible Candidates to be featured shortly).
Therefore, the same enthusiasm shown by Nigerians towards to Voters Registration exercise must be applied mainly to all spheres of our daily lives. That is when nation-building begins and it’s sustained. If we don’t, we will remain in a situation where we become active politically only before elections and inactive for the next 3 1/2 years. That would not lead to the development of our nation.
Let’s explore this further and permit me to do this under some sub headings. This helps to reinforce the fact that participation is required in every area of the Nigerian society.
Politics: I start first with the political sector because I want to make clear that I do believe in the importance of a credible electoral process (general elections, party primaries and voters register). But the sort of participation that will move our undeveloped nation to a developed nation is not only in registering to vote and voting during the actual elections. Reason being, the voting process is just one stage of the democratic process.
As stated above, credible election does not always translate into credible leader which means, we must focus more attention on credible candidates. We need more participation from people with vision, ambition, passion, relevant experience and evidence of credibility in elections. It is time we stop saying politics is dirty or it is too dangerous. If we do not see increased participation by credible people, we will continue to see people with poor leadership qualities standing for elections, leaving us with little electoral option. Not to mention that these are the sorts that seek to win by all cost, utilising intimidation (through violence thugs) and election rigging.
Another key area of political participation is in becoming card carrying members of a political party. If we’re not putting ourselves forward for election, we should participate as party members. This will enable us encourage internal party democracy, vote for credible candidates during party primaries and improve the image of political party & the public perception of them. We can’t afford to leave party membership to people with questionable character and only expect to vote on candidates these people present to us.
We have to participate in groups or gatherings that demand to know what the candidate programmes are prior to elections. Our participation should also include conducting researches into candidate background to ascertain their ability to perform. This research is to confirm the candidate’s qualification, experiences and past performances in any endeavour.
Participation should also include supporting legal cases to remove candidates with questionable character, candidates who rigged elections and elected people who are found to be corrupt.
When a candidate has won elections and is sworn into office, we should actively participate in monitoring his or her performance, regularly attending their surgery or town hall meetings, draw their attention to areas of neglect and remind them of their manifesto. I believe effective monitoring is one of the prerequisite for good governance and a frequent reminder of who they are accountable to.
When a political candidate knows that his people were actively involved in the process before he or she was elected, during the election phase and are actively involved in monitoring his performance in office, he will most likely seek to perform well or risk losing the elections and lose face in the community after he leaves office.
I have to commend several groups that are taking an active role in this regard but we need to mobilise more Nigerians to participate to achieve greater impact. We can use our active participation in our political process to fight back the influence of political godfathers (see my article on ‘The Con of the Consensus’ at my blog – http://nationarise.wordpress.com/).
Education: To build our nation, we need to actively participate in the educational sector. As stated previously, nation-building cannot be achieved mainly by political leadership and by extension of that, government alone cannot turnaround our educational sector. Relevant & accessible education is essential for building a nation because it leads the fight against ethnocentric politics, poverty, social ills and health ignorance.
Whilst there is a place for private education, the fact that it is increasing to the detriment of public education is hampering the building of our nation.
We need mass participation from most Nigerians in supporting public education to achieve a critical mass of educated Nigerians which is a key requirement for nation-building.
Participation may include financial support to schools in deprived areas, providing books & other infrastructural needs, volunteering a day, month or sabbatical year to teach and/or mentor in such schools. Most times, what these schools need is not really money (though it does help a lot) but more people to participate directly in the educational process of our children through teaching and mentoring.
We guarantee the security of our private school trained children by ensuring that people who will live & work alongside them in tomorrow’s Nigeria are equally well educated.
Health: Participation in our health sector cannot be limited to government and health professionals, if we desire to see first class healthcare delivery associated with developed nations. There is so much work that needs to be done and a lot depends on our participation.
We can participate in public health awareness amongst the less informed and uneducated Nigerians who die in their thousands due to ignorance. Effective public health awareness must not be seen as a government only activity because the objective of saving lives requires the collective efforts of all citizens.
Other areas of participation include financial support for research & equipment, direct labour support to build medical infrastructures, foreign doctors invitation for free medical care, direct involvement in mass mobilisation for health campaigns such as immunisation & vitamin distribution to babies and nursing mothers from poor background, etc.
It would be great to see more Nigerian doctors in diaspora (many of whom are well paid) give up some of their holiday time to offer free medical care and enlightenment to Nigerians both in cities and villages in Nigeria. Lack of basic medical knowledge is killing many of our people (both the educated and uneducated) and I speak from personal experience.
Whilst we are at it, permit me to appeal to us to set up and participate in an awareness programme for prostate cancer because of the high number of Nigerian men being killed. Only a few discover this cancer at a late stage (mostly the rich) and the rest die without knowing (& their relatives are likely victims and do not know this). I am keen to participate in such programme and happy to be contacted by people with similar passion.
Family: My inclusion of the family as a key sector that requires participation will surprise many. But I believe the family is the foundation for building & sustaining any nation. The primary reason for the current state of our nation is due to the sort of parenting children receive in Nigerian homes and not even the best education can rectify poor parenting.
In many homes, the parents are absent and when present in the home, there are not positively or actively involved in parenting their kids (this was a personal discovery for me). Fathers are worse in the regards but without active participation of parents (especially the fathers) in the training of their children, everything else will fall apart because this is the foundation for any development.
Therefore, nation-building places a huge demand on Fathers to provide positive modelling for, and mentoring of their children. This cannot be achieved through partial parenting but active & proactive participation in Fatherhood.
Also, in many homes, mothers have abdicated their role to house helps and nannies. And for those mothers involved in parenting their children, there is still a need for them to focus their family participation on efforts that will create in their children the desire to build a great Nigeria. Mothers’ participation needs to move from a motherhood duty to a service in nation-building.
Family participation should not be limited to our children only but must also include children of relatives, neighbours and the less privileged. Since we do not live in isolation, we must participate in the parenting of people in and outside of our families.
Young and even older children must also participation in supporting the family activities on a regular basis. Through family participation, we can instil values that will build and sustain a great nation.
Religion: I’m sure you would wonder what other participation that would be required under religion considering we are very religious, with active participation in church/mosque attendance. We have been rightly called the most religious people on earth.
However, you will have noticed that I stated that we actively participate in attendance. There is huge difference between attending meetings and in actually putting to practice the teachings and ministry of the religious organisation.
We do all agree that if we put into practice just half of what we’re know about our faith, our nation will be transformed. We cannot leave this to the clergy but must take the initiative to participate in the teachings of our faith in our daily lives and in the areas of our influence & interaction.
That is how we participate actively in our religious beliefs. Also, we can participate in the charity work of our religious organisations. If more members got involved in supporting their organisations’ work in healthcare, social care, education and advocacy, I believe many of our religious organisations will contribute enormously to nation-building.
Religious organisations must play a leading role in areas such as affordable primary & secondary education, affordable primary healthcare and social care. If they are not, we have to proactively encourage these through our participation within the organisation
Community Development: Mass participation in community development efforts is also essential. For those who live in townships and abroad, we should participate in community development at our base and at our villages.
When communities come together to tackle a problem, there is great momentum that enables significant development and progress. But it important to note that participation in community development requires more than financial support. In fact, its success would depend largely on direct participation via the investment of time and other resources outside of finance.
Despite busy schedule for most people, we can create the time to participate in efforts to develop or sustain the development of our bases and our villages. It’s not enough to hold fundraising event but the main work is in implementing the concept behind the fundraising. This is where active participation makes the difference.
Conclusion
Hopefully, it would have become obvious by now that a critical mass of Nigerians with good & relevant education, good family background, involved in community development efforts and great exhibitors of the doctrines of their faith, will lead to credible and stable political leadership.
Again, the objective of this article is to prompt the same momentum given to mobilising Nigerians to go register to vote and also to vote in the general elections, to be carried over to the other stages of the political process and more importantly, to other spheres of our society.
There are many more areas of participation that we Nigerians can identify but the appeal is for us to find a group and participate in their worthy cause and also create groups in areas that are yet to witness active participation. We can all find a general and also a specific area we can participate in.
What is quite interesting is, in developed nations where huge government resources are invested into every facet of their society, there is still a strong exhibition of public participation in all areas of society. Many even go as far as to Will their assets to a cause after they’re gone. This means, even when we have built a developed nation, mass participation would be required to sustain it.
No nation has ever been built by one man or even by a few. It has always required the collective efforts of many who laid their lives and paid huge sacrifices to build a developed nation that they may not even witness.
Knowledge of the solution would not change our situation. The knowledge has to be put into practice and participation is putting the knowledge into practice. Practice should involve participation firstly as parents, children and believers, secondly, direct involvement in our specific area of deep interest (our passion) and thirdly, indirectly in other areas.
Country people, let’s participate in building a developed Nigeria.
Bobby Udoh is a nation-building evangelist and the founder of Nation Arise, an organisation dedicated to the mobilization of every Nigerian through the gospel of nation-building. Read more articles on his weekly blog – http://nationarise.wordpress.com/)
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