Any society that finds itself in the state Nigeria is today must know that there is something fundamentally wrong with it and so requires structural and institutional reformation. Whereas democrats claim that democracy gives the people the ability to control decision-making process, it is a known fact that, in this clime, the people may troop out to vote, but their votes hardly count. Also, the level of participation of the people in the electoral process that has become a do or die affair, is nothing to write home about and so the legitimacy of our successive governments since 1999 can be put to question given low level of people's participation, foul plays, rigging, snatching of ballot boxes, falsification of results to outright misrepresentation of reports and results. In a circumstance like this, the people are excluded from choosing their own representatives. To legitimalize themselves in office, each emerging government talks of giving dividend of democracy which simply means giving good governance. Good governance depends on knowing the actual needs, demands and aspirations of the people but we all know that party manifestos with which any successful party rules, are prepared by only a few members of the oligarchy in the party and so cannot be said to have been widely discussed. It is, therefore, defective and fails the first test of popular participation in democracy.Popular participation in our context is thus limited to the figures we are given as votes cast. Another theory of democracy is that which sees a government emerging from the principle of Common Good And The Will of the people, a principle that makes the people Sovereign. Sovereignty of the people works only when the votes of the people really count and that those they have voted for are indeed their actual choices. It is only when these things happen as they should that we can call democracy as the institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which aggregate the common good and the general will of the people to choose those that will carry out their will. The other side of democracy is the existence of competitive struggles for the people's votes for the emergence of political leadership. All of the aforesaid principles exist as an ideal. We know that party hegemony and discipline forbid you to criticize the leadership and so must abide by whatever choice is made by the leadership which itself is a negation of the principle of sovereignty of the people. It also negates the principle that admits of the political equality of the people to stand for any elective position and to vote any person of his choice.Yes all of these rights are guaranteed by the constitution, in actual fact Party Politics which recognises the supremacy of the party over individuals cannot make this to work so much so that politicians decamp soon after winning election under one party. In the subsisting scenerio, the real majority, that is, the masses are held in bondage, by the minority, that is, the political elite, the party leadership. In this circumstance, one can only hazard to say that Nigeria's politics is the politics of exclusion of the masses to the advantage of the minority, that is, the political leaders, who soon after attaining power, abandon the masses. Where then lies the popular participation of democracy' Government functions on an input-output political system. In-put, that is, the demands, needs and expectations of the people. Output, that is, government policies, decisions and activities that result from the inputs. The masses who, always, are at the receiving end of government policies constitute 90 per cent of the voting population. The questions is, to what extent do they interact with the government' We know, for sure, that the grass roots people are un-organised and so cannot easily constitute themselves into a pressure group and so do not have any significant impact on government policies. The point is, if indeed, democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people, would it not be opposite for government to structure these people into small grass root formations for purposes of making them participate in governance especially when we all know that they are the targets of all political groups at election time. Except we want to continue to deceive ourselves, the grassroots people should be the prime focus of any government for the sustenance of our socio-political economic system. It is a very potent sector in terms of number, yet it is the most abused, ignored and treated as inconsequential. That sector is deliberately impoverished, marginalized, treated with disdain, their children are turned into hoodlums and thugs for odd jobs, they remain jobless even after acquiring education with good grades while children of the few affiuent are put up to manage family businesses, they are classified unemployable and are condemned to ride Okada, to become touts at our motor parks, markets and bus stops. This group is perpetually discontent with the polity. They see their lives as hopeless and helpless and must think of means for their survival in an environment that cares less about them. In such situation, criminality is engendered, distrust and restiveness become a part of their lifestyle. They are intolerant of people around them and are repulsive of any mention of government. They are easily agitated and violent at the slightest prick. The group does not believe it is relevant in the scheme of things because they think government policies are always designed to benefit themselves and their ilks alone. Since their needs or demands are never sought before government policies are made, they think even if through some means they air their views on governance, they are never heard. They, in silence, grumble about the glaring imbalance and inequity in distribution of wealth including stratification of available opportunities. This group sees democracy as the government of a few, for the few rich and connected, by the very few that are wealthy because the critical mass which constitutes the majority, whose votes confer political power has become inconsequential after their votes have been bought.From the foregoing, there can be no reformation of the polity until our leaders see the need that, the foundation is solidly built to take the weight of the load on top. The communities i.e. the foundation must be structured into organised units i.e. the CDA because unorganised community is never easy to coordinate and control. Orija wrote in from Oshodi, Lagos.
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