We need a new republic

Oh, Nigeria! My dear country, the self-purported giant of Africa that never was. My dear nation is 61 years old, yet it has no stable electricity, running water or stable infrastructure. Nigeria is a shithole. Donald Trump wasn’t wrong. Nigeria is a shithole in every sense of the word. These are not the best of times to be a Nigerian. The country we apparently call home contends with rampant domestic insecurity and a worsening economic crisis. Thousands of young people are increasingly voting with their feet, both legally and illegally. For the first time in the country’s history, there is a real sense that Nigerians are trapped between a rock and a hard place — threatened by poverty, violence and insecurity at home, but facing hostility abroad too. The country’s political class is totally disconnected from the majority of the population. We have a median population age of just 18 years, versus a political class filled almost exclusively with over-60s and over-70s. This situation could be described as a minority rule. We live in a feudalist state where the leaders do not represent the majority visually, culturally, ideologically or even functionally, but rather represent their own narrow interests without any care for the majority population.

The man currently ruling Aso Rock makes no apologies for how little time he has for our ‘nonsense’ these days. The disrespect we are currently subjected to as citizens is appalling. That disrespect is even getting increasingly common among our African contemporaries. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that Nigeria is one of the most insecure countries in the world. Nigeria is also facing unsustainable population growth rate and a rotten educational system that is ill-suited to prepare most Nigerian youth. Against this inhospitable scenery, hundreds of thousands of young people continue to flee Nigeria each year, resigned to the harsh reality of living with an emergency consciousness in an increasingly harsh and unwelcomed Diaspora, whether in Jakarta or Nairobi. Right now, we are caught between a society that is disintegrating at the seams, a government that sees us as obstacles to be overcome, and a world that no longer wants us.

What have we done about it? Well, for starters, most Nigerians are docile, cowardly and dishonest people who blame God/Satan for the state of the country though they walked with their two feet to the polling station to vote for geriatric mannequins to be president. In 2015 and 2019, many Nigerians voted for Buhari yet we still blame the devil. Why? Lack of self-awareness and resistance to taking accountability. Guess what? We are also the poverty capital of the world overtaking India in 2017. We also have a battered image, no thanks to fraudsters, drug dealers and cultists making a name for themselves in countries such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil to name a few. That isn’t very good optics for the largest nation in Africa. India, Germany, China, the US and Brazil are all powerhouses and have something to show for their size. With us? Nothing.

What are we good for? We haven’t figured out a way to get out of our cycle and it’s 2022. We will be stuck that way without drastic change. I know what that change is. We need a new republic. We need the Fifth Republic. We are currently in the fourth Republic governed by a 23-year-old constitution that is simply outdated and unfair to most citizens. A constitution is a body of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organisation is acknowledged to be governed. Nigerians have yet to establish what we are as a nation. We don’t know what we want as a citizen body. I can give you a direction: separation of religion from state. Politics and religion should never be mixed together. It’s a toxic, machiavellian combination that is guaranteed to cause state failure due to its biased and corrosive nature. There’s no room for Sharia in our constitution. We need to introduce secularism that removes religion from political, economic and social institutions in Nigeria for a stable nation.

A perfect political system? Let us embrace the proportional representation system (PR).PR characterises an electoral system in which divisions in an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. Implementing a PR system means that Nigeria will become a multi-party state. This ensures that ethno-religious tensions will be alleviated greatly and ethnic minorities are fairly represented. It’s not a perfect system but it will improve our chances for prosperity and stability. PR decentralises power so, it will make the presidency less attractive to wannabe despots and authoritarians. We need decentralisation, the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organisations. Decentralisation is necessary for a multi-ethnic state. No ifs, no buts. Having a centralised government in a multi-ethnic nation creates disgruntled citizens who think they aren’t represented fairly. This increases the chances of ethnic tensions and therefore chances of social instability. In conclusion, building a nation is difficult but is achievable. It’s hardwork, we just need a clear direction on where to start and I believe creating a new republic is the way forward.

Kazah writes in via alisekazah@gmail.com