Funmilola Ogunseye is studying Psychology at the University of Lagos. She runs a literary blog called Dascience. Through this blog, Ogunseye reviews books she has read. Like literature police, she awards marks to books based on her opinions of them. In her review of my book, In the Name of Our Father, she said she was sad that most of the challenges or problems the country faced under the military were still with us.A month and four days from today, it will be 20 years since the military returned to the barracks and became subservient to civil authorities. But unfortunately, many things have largely remained the same or even become worse. For example, the police are still the way they used to be: innocent people are paraded for crimes they know nothing about; many murder cases are unresolved; senior police officers dance to politicians and the richs tunes, and justice remains a victim.Politicians are still the same: the people are the least important; no permanent friends but interests; patronage still has edge over service; and if the devil can guarantee electoral success, politicians are ready to have a deal. We are yet to start crawling, not to talk of walking, and far away from running.Our politicians are just a little better than the military. In a lot of sense, many of the players on the political scene are yet to be cured of the military hang-over. A sizeable number of the key players even have a garrison mentality. Ours is a democracy without democrats. Selfish interests are masqueraded as national interests. The good of one is sold as the good of all. Politicians abandon one party to join another and defend it as if it were based on sound principles. The defections and the reasons behind them are interesting, but if you scratch beyond the surface, you will see deceit and the love of self. I take it with a pinch of the salt when I hear a politician talk about building a solid foundation for the entrenchment of democracy. These funny chaps still talk about sacrificing their interests for our nation. They really get ridiculous when they speak about commitment, transparency and accountability.There is this other case which makes me further believe that we want democracy, but are not ready to be Democrats: My heart broke when a group of new breed politicians behaved like the people they said they wanted to replace during the last general elections. In the run-up to the polls, Motivational Speaker Fela Durotoye was chosen to represent the new breed through a shadow election, but the ink with which his name was written was yet to dry when the others in contention rubbished the exercise that produced him. It is more painful given the fact that these were people with little or no chance of winning the presidential election.During the last party primaries, some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors complained about direct primaries, which were meant to give party members a choice in picking candidates. Their Excellencies instead wanted consensus or indirect primaries. They did not break any law because their partys constitution allows it. But what better test of popularity is there than direct primaries' But, their Excellencies were afraid that their popularity among party men and women was not enough to guarantee their lackeys picking the prized tickets.Our education system, which suffered under the military, is still suffering. Universities are no longer great. Students are no longer tutored and mentored by star local and foreign lecturers. Hostels are now bedbug-invested. Our primary, secondary and tertiary health institutions are no longer world class.The University College Hospital (UCH) was first among equals globally; its facilities were top notch and its members of staff could raise their heads high anywhere in the world. Twenty years of democracy has not been able to reverse the brain drain, which has turned UCH and others to shadows of their old selves.Minister of Labour and Productivity Chris Ngige a few days back even said there was nothing to be sad about brain drain. Haba! The brain drain hit the health sector in the 80s and has not abated. The work ethic and attitude of the remaining doctors to patients care are nothing near the top class they used to be. We thought democracy would bring back the good old days. Aside from brain drain, infrastructure has also decayed. Power supply, lack of equipment, and others have not been helped by 20 years of democracy.As I write, many doctors are on their way to Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia because of the poor state of medical practice in the country. Even those who are not leaving are not committed. Many a doctor in government-owned hospitals run private clinics and dedicate attention to their private practice than their primary employer.Under democracy, our people come up with all sorts of excuses to get asylum abroad. Boko Haram has provided a good excuse for many. They now have comfortable homes in Europe and America. Democracys attempt to fix the electricity challenge has been a major flop. Since licences were given to Ikeja Electric, Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and nine others, they have shown that they lack what is needed to make a success of the sector. It has been garbage in, garbage out. Consumers regularly express their displeasure through blockades of electricity distribution companies offices over poor service delivery occasioned by erratic billing and epileptic power supply. Consumers, consumer advocacy groups, regulators and legislators have shouted themselves hoarse.The courts are having hectic schedules with cases filed by short-changed consumers. For me, the investors rushed into the deal thinking it would be all rosy like the situation when GSM licences were issued. BEDC is having a serious challenge with the Edo State government. Governor Godwin Obaseki even walked out of a meeting with the companys management team for its abysmal performance. Edo is literally in darkness. So piqued is the Oba of Benin that he pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari some days back to ensure BEDCs licence is not renewed. I suspect that if something is not done soon, the Benin monarch will invoke his spiritual powers to force the non-performer out of town.According to a Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) report, the 11 DisCos received 128,791 complaints from consumers in the third quarter of last year. 153,227 complaints were received in the second quarter. The report published on NERCs website also shows that BEDC had the highest number of complaints. I was not surprised that Ikeja DisCo was number two. The complaints, according to the report, is on service interruption, poor voltage, load shedding, metering, estimated billing, disconnection and delayed connection.It is not surprising that metering and billing issues dominated the complaints. Metering and billing accounted for 53 per cent of the complaints. 68,749 complaints in the third quarter of last year were on metering and billing. 103,636 billing and metering complaints were recorded in the second quarter. This means that an average of about 747 customers complained about metering and billing per day in the third quarter of 2018. The NERC received 1,959 complaints from customers who were unsatisfied with DisCos decisions in the last quarter of last year.My final take: The gains of democracy in the last 20 years have not met our expectations. We have practised this great system in a peculiar way, which simply looks to me like dem all are crazy. We need to turn a new leaf. We must!
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