The Presidency on Monday, attributed the current state of Nigeria’s democracy to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, told PUNCH that the roots of the current democratic practices in the country can be traced to Obasanjo’s direct contributions during his time as military Head of State (1976–1979) and civilian President (1999–2007).
“Obasanjo ought to know that he brought this thing into Nigeria. He was the one who made us adopt it in 1979. He must have seen it as expensive and unsuitable when he governed us for eight years and even wanted an extension for another four years.
“So, the way he is sounding, it is like the man is getting wiser after leaving office,” Onanuga said, reacting to Obasanjo’s post-presidential stance.
The Presidency’s reaction came in response to remarks by Obasanjo during the high-level consultation on Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy in Africa, held at Green Resort Legacy, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
Obasanjo had expressed disapproval of Western democracy, stating that it had failed to bring about good governance and development in Africa.
He urged a reconsideration and adaptation of democracy to better fit the requirements of African nations, highlighting the Western model’s neglect of African history and complexities.
Obasanjo proposed an “Afro democracy” tailored to the continent’s unique needs.
The ex-president emphasized that the limitation of liberal democracy stemmed from its non-native origins and failure to consider African history, multicultural complexities, and other unique characteristics.
Picking holes in the Western liberal democracy, Obasanjo described it as a “government of a few people over all the people or population and these few people are representatives of only some of the people and not fully representatives of all the people. Invariably, the majority of the people are wittingly or unwittingly kept out.”
He argued that African countries shouldn’t engage in a system of government where they have no involvement in its “definition and design.”
Obasanjo said, “The weakness and failure of liberal democracy as it is practiced stem from its history, content and context, and practice. Once you move from all the people to a representative of the people, you start to encounter troubles and problems.
“For those who define it as the rule of the majority, should the minority be ignored, neglected, and excluded? In short, we have a system of government in which we have no hands to define and design and we continue with it even when we know that it is not working for us.
“Those who brought it to us are now questioning the rightness of their invention, its deliverability, and its relevance today without reform. The essence of any system of government is the welfare and well-being of the people, all the people.”
He argued that Nigerians must “interrogate the performance of democracy in the West where it originated from and with us the inheritors of what we are left with by our colonial powers.”
However, the Presidency held the former leader responsible for implementing a poorly replicated model during his time as Head of State and later as President.
It criticized Obasanjo for not advocating a better system despite his current views saying, “If he believes in what he is saying now, he ought to be an advocate of the need to go back to the parliamentary system.”
Onanuga added, “We were practicing the parliamentary democracy the British left for us. Then, the military struck in 1966. And when we were going to return to democracy, instead of going back to what we were practicing before, parliamentary democracy, which was not expensive, it was this same Obasanjo who accepted the recommendation of the constitutional assembly at that time that recommended this American-style democracy.”
The Presidency condemned Obasanjo’s execution of the presidential system, saying, “Obasanjo also knew that he copied this presidential system very wrongly. He copied the form and structure. But he didn’t copy the spirit of it.”
“Something that should have been under him in 1999 to 2007, he even made attempts to modify the constitution,” Onanuga remarked.
Kanyi Daily recalls that Bola Tinubu is set to join other heads of state and government in Guinea Bissau to commemorate the country’s 50th Independence Anniversary and Armed Forces Day on Thursday.
