Former Cross River State governor and presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party, Donald Duke, has argued that Nigerians were better off under military rule than they are under the country’s current democratic system.
Duke said the 27 years since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 have come at enormous cost without corresponding improvements in the lives of ordinary citizens.
Speaking during an interview, the former governor said governance was less expensive under military administrations.
“The people today, Sunny, I would tell you that they were better off under the military,” Duke said during an interview, adding that, “At least governance was not that expensive.”
He said the true measure of democracy should be the welfare of the people and the benefits citizens have enjoyed since the country returned to civilian rule.
“I’m speaking broadly now,” he said. “If we focus on the well-being of the people, what we term democracy dividends, how much has been delivered?
“We’re still having the same problems we had 27 years ago. It’s getting worse. The number of children out of school has not improved; it’s deteriorating. The healthcare system is not improving; it’s deteriorating.
“Infrastructure deficiency over the last 27 years—are we better off? The question is: are we better off today than we were in 1999? Hardly so. Hardly so.”
Duke said many of the problems confronting Nigeria before the return to democracy remain unresolved, including unemployment and inadequate electricity supply.
“The problems that existed before 1999—electrification, unemployment—those things are still there,” he said. “And I don’t see a structured approach towards dealing with these issues.
“This is my frustration, because there’s no problem we cannot resolve. We’re not a unique country.
“There are peer reviews you can do. How did you solve this? How did you do that? Are we thinking through our problems?”
The former governor also expressed concern over what he described as a weak and self-centred opposition, arguing that the country’s electoral system had left many Nigerians disillusioned.
“The opposition is terribly weakened and self-centred. Democracy is also in danger,” Duke said. “The results you get from the polls often don’t reflect the views of the people.
“So there’s a disenchantment with the system, both by the contestants and the public. Most people don’t vote because they believe their votes don’t count.”
According to him, when voters believe their votes do not matter, elected officials are less likely to feel accountable to the people.
“Because your vote doesn’t matter, there’s a tendency to take people for a ride and disregard what is required by the people,” he said.
Duke further argued that Nigeria was merely pretending to practise democracy, claiming that the legislature and judiciary had failed to provide the necessary checks and balances.
“We don’t have a democracy. We are pretending democracy,” he said. “We’re not a democracy. You and I know that.
“And the checks and balances from the National Assembly—you know there’s no check; there’s no balance.”
He cited the swift approval of the return to Nigeria’s former national anthem as an example of what he described as lawmakers’ failure to properly scrutinise executive proposals.
“We changed the national anthem in a week. Nobody was asking questions,” he said. “They shouted, ‘On your mandate, we shall stand,’ abdicating their responsibilities.
“We had a Chief Justice of this country singing, ‘On your mandate, we shall stand.’ There’s no judiciary. We all know it. But are we prepared to deal with it?”
Duke blamed the country’s political situation largely on the elite, whom he accused of abandoning their responsibility and allowing politics to become a permanent occupation for a select group of people.
“It’s a failure of the elite more than anything else,” he said. “We’re elites; we’re enlightened people. But we abdicated our leadership to those whom we should be leading.
“Politics is no longer a vocation. It’s an occupation for those people. And you can’t get them out.”
He also warned about the growing gap between the rich and the poor, saying it could eventually threaten social stability.
“There was a time when I used to be in the National Economic Intelligence Committee and Professor Aluko used to say, proverbially, that a time is coming in this country when the rich won’t sleep because the poor have not eaten.
“I think the time is coming.”
Despite his criticism, Duke maintained that Nigeria possessed the human and material resources needed to overcome its challenges.
“Nigeria is exceedingly blessed,” he said. “It’s sad. It’s painful that we are where we are.”
