Representative Democracy and Accessibility

Anyone who refers to the last millennium as the millennium of democracy will not be wrong. The end of the Cold war established America and its democratic model of representative leadership as the ideal nation state that has the peoples will as a priority. Since every body cannot participate in governance, Democracy offers the opportunity for all sections of the society to select those who will govern them and protect their interest through an organised system of Elections.

This system did not start in America, the Roman empire is said to be the cradle of representative Governance but the USA refined it and succeeded in exporting its principles to other countries around the world. Today over 90% of nation states in existence practice democracy with slight modifications to suit local realities. Even Monarch states have diluted their systems to accommodate some form of representative governance with the monarchy becoming ceremonial heads. The idea behind this is to bring government closer to the people.

Nigeria returned to democratic governance in 1999, after over two decades of military rule. The political system in place is a loose federal system having elected representatives in the Executive and legislative arm of Government at the federal,state and local levels. The federal govt has the president and his vice for the executive while the National assembly has 109 senators and over 350 members of the house of representatives. The state govt on the other hand has the governor and his deputy and the members of the state houses of assembly while the local Govt has d chairman and his deputy with legislative control given to the Councilors.

With all the so called representatives, Nigerians still find it very hard to interact with Government. Once elected into office, our representatives become as scarce as diamond. Just try reaching out to one of them(at any level) and you will know what am saying. Even though NASS/state assembly members are paid huge amounts for setting up and operating constituency offices I doubt if any of them maintains such. It has become virtually impossible for ordinary Nigerians to see their representatives let alone tell them their problems. This lack of connect between the Government and the people is manifest because those in leadership are not representing the people but their selfish personal agenda. They treat the people with scorn and disdain and see themselves as rulers instead of servants. Successive representatives have only succeeded in approving huge allowances for themselves without any commiserate output to justify such amounts. All sorts of unnecessary extras which include, housing, furniture, car, and entertainment allowances has turned representative duties into money making ventures, which has led to a desperation on the part of ordinary citizens to ensure that they win elective offices not to serve but to make money.

Even with the monetisation policy in place it is not unusual for one to see a situation where a public officer is entitled to a fleet of cars for his convoy and huge amounts budgeted for newspapers, entertainment and even medical treatment abroad. Another obscene allowance is the so called ‘security vote’ which cannot be questioned. How can you have public expenditure without accountability? Your answer is as good as mine. These allowances have become a burden on scarce resources which has even led to borrowings to finance the greed of the few. Recent statics by the National bureau of statistics has shown that over 100 million Nigerians live in abject poverty yet our representatives are buying Suv s.
The most scary aspect is the realisation that the public service and the private sector too have adopted the lavish lifestyle for their top executives. Luxury for a few suffering and pain for the majority. All this will not have been an issue if there was access to public officials