GOVERNANCE AND CHALLENGES FACING THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY: CHALLENGES FACING THE PARTY’S CONGRESS The burden of change is not a charge but a responsibility that we all as Nigerians must live up to. This now brings to our mind the good efforts, over the years, the gentle men of the press have put in making sure that good governance and transparency are achieved in our democracy. The multitude of political parties devoid of discernible modern political ideologies is a part of the problems facing Nigeria today. As a result, the politicians thrive on the peoples ignorance. In advanced economies and true democracies, there are inherent ideological ‘wars among political parties that drive democracy and economic development. In such nations people of similar ideology congregate under a party, push their agenda and build a strong democratic government. And in the process of selling their ideologies (vision, values and beliefs) to the public political parties help to shape the political culture of nations and promote development. The challenge faced by the Congress of political party is that while it cannot form a government at the Centre because of its own strength in Nigeria, its coalition partners are also its political competitors, even opponents, in different regions of Africa. As party Congress can expand its political support base if it sets its own house in order. First, the Congress has to confront Electoral Commission both organisationally and politically in states where politics is polarised between these two main contenders for power. Nigeria political parties Congress is in a bad shape and the party had to replace its own Executive Committees in less than four years and party’s has to seriously look inward and rethink about her assets and weaknesses as the supreme leader of the Congress. If she is the leader of the party, she has to behave like a leader and perform surgical organisational restructuring of her defunct grassroots party structures. In Nigeria, however, the politicians shuttle from one party to another to achieve their selfish purpose; and many of them would disappear into the thin air after collecting their share of government grants. The nations politics and democracy suffer because the politicians are not directed by philosophy. The politicians are thus obstacle to political and economic development as their activities have negative impacts on the polity. A few of the ‘lawmakers and lawbreakers, if any, is willing to make the sacrifices necessary for Nigerias development. The politicians are becoming a public nuisance: they resist change and publicly fight over bills that do not favor them; and they are not accountable to the people. And the problem of entitlement has assumed a disturbing dimension. As political Parties should understood the tide of events and being stakeholders with a strong intent to bring succour to the long suffering people of our dear state quickly embraced the idea of a unity government; the leadership problem that has confronted Nigeria since independence appears to be worsening because the state of the polity is rapidly deteriorating. As noted earlier, very few of the leaders, if any, work for ‘common good. Over the years a wave reform programs have been undertaken but the society lacks political leadership committed to implement them to address the problems facing the economy. Thus, leadership is a responsibility. Leadership, among other definitions, ‘is a process of getting things done through people; it ‘means responsibility- having ‘passion for the purpose and the mission of the organization or society one leads. But the leaders of Nigeria appear good at prescribing solutions to economic problems without providing the institutional framework to make it grow and more often than not, their policies are hastily put together and poorly executed. The political landscape in African Countries is littered with wreckage of unreasoned policies and those involved in such activities appear to enjoy the nations underdeveloped status. The activities of the leaders shape the reality the nation faces today because there is a glaring contradiction in their words and their deeds. They fail to understand that performance is the only standard by which leaders are judged. Nigerias development rests with good leadership and governance. Recent developments in Nigeria inter Party development have made a review of the health of the nations economy rather compelling. The political leaders have always raised the peoples hope by painting glowing picture of their development plans and how to take the nation to the ‘Promised Land of true democracy and economic prosperity. They swore that citizens empowerment would become their top priority yet they refuse to fix the infrastructure and institutions that would propel the economy and create employment for the millions of graduates churn out by the educational institutions yearly. Like the leaders before him, Jonathan has promised a bunch and the people cannot check their enthusiasm and past efforts at instituting opposition in government has failed because of a number of factors, chiefly because of the ideological differences between the parties as well as the narrow and selfish agenda of opposition leaders to dominate. Opposition parties in African democracies are highly fragmented, as there are many countries that have many small and weak political parties. This fragmented party system has instead reinforced the power of the incumbents. INTRA-PARTY friction also led to further fragmentation as the case and many of the opposition parties in Africa are established around individual personalities. These kinds of parties face split whenever another rising star challenges the founder or the leader of the party. This is one of the reasons for the presence of many fragmented political parties in Africa. Over the years, it is unfortunate that most political parties have no clearly identifiable progressive principles or ideologies to address the needs of Nigerians. Contrary to popular belief, most of the time (in modern political history) Political Parties Congress and the Party campaign are at odds; that is, most of the time the same political party does not control the governorship, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Political parties have been central to the organization and operations of the electoral process. As Brainstorm Associates demonstrates, the efforts of the founding generation to create a national government free of political parties proved unworkable. Parties demonstrated their worth in the Congress or State Assembly or Federal House of Representative, which is very quickly in organizing its work and in bridging the separation of powers. Just in a decade, political parties has absorbed the various state and local factions and this time presidency has been paired with a congress dominated by the same party for years and a State Congress that is half or fully dominated by the other party for years need to complicate things, the parties themselves have to change over time since the ruling party has held a clear majority in both the Federal and State House of Assembly and Senate for years now and as Brainstorm Associates are set to reexamines theory and evidence on party competition in many countries; therefore political party congress is simply the allocation of members to committees; parties allocate members to committees to maximize the joint utility of its members, taking into account how the committees memberships affect the legislation adopted by the legislature. Parties are constrained by both institutional rules and the heterogeneity of party members preferences. Interest group ratings from the State Assembly or Federal House of Representatives provide evidence that the parties stack committees in a manner consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. Alternative hypotheses explain no more than half the committees in the Nigeria Congress, while the party competition hypothesis is consistent with the overall structure of the committees. Model selection tests that nest the party competition and representative majority party hypotheses reveal that the party competition hypothesis is supported by the data while the representative majority party hypothesis is not. Hereto, another chronic problem of the opposition parties in many African transitional democracies is their failure to forward distinct policy alternatives to the voters. Political parties, which are led by single individual leaders usually, do not offer alternative policies to the voters, but emphasize the ability of the opposition party leaders to run the government “better” than the incumbent party and the government leaders. These types of political parties do not offer policy alternatives that will bring about enduring stability. Most of the political parties are short-lived, bereft of long history and experience. Therefore, the voters do not have any chance to evaluate opposition parties’ achievements over time. Women and youth are widely underrepresented in many African opposition political parties. This is true not only to the opposition parties themselves, but also to the incumbent parties. Just a few women have been identified with the Nigeria’s merging parties as well other opposition political parties. Like in develop countries; party Congress has various positions and officers that run the business of governing and legislating in each chamber. The political party caucuses elect the leadership in each chamber after each election. In the House, there is the speaker of the House, the majority leader, minority leader and numerous whips. In the Senate, there is a president, a president pro-tempore, a majority leader, a minority leader and numerous whips. Each chamber also has clerks, secretaries and sergeants-at-arms who are not elected officials. Hereto, Nigerians call on each political party in Nigeria to give serious consideration to nominating any candidate for the 2015 election to address decades of deliberate and systematic punitive exclusion of Nigerians in Nigeria politics; though we had consider for support and endorsement parties that give serious consideration to and support for any nominee for 2015 general elections; and to the determination of party membership relies upon a number of authoritative sources which means that subsequent changes in House membership due to deaths, resignations, contested or special elections, or changes in a Member’s party affiliation are not included. Consequently, as we are ready to join hand to preserve and promote the sovereignty, unity and progress of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; promote the welfare and happiness of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; promote true (proper) Federalism in Nigeria based on social justice, freedom, equality, peace and progress of all our people; promote through an environment of tolerance and peaceful co-existence. Ensure we build a new Nation which will guarantee equal opportunity for all, Mutual respect and understanding, and elimination of all forms of discrimination among out people; and render selfless service and enkindle in all Nigerians a deep sense of patriotism and nationalism; Despite the unpleasant African experience, the relevance of oppositions in the entrenchment of a virile democracy cannot be over-emphasized. They remain the veritable yardstick to gauge the performance of governments for better service delivery. They should be vanguards for the establishment of purposeful governance. Any serious nation that is poised for development must be ready to learn from its past mistakes with a view to forging ahead. Hence, if there is any genuine effort at looking, back and correcting what went wrong; such efforts should be appreciated and embraced. In Nigeria, Financing political parties is usually problematic and controversial everywhere in the world. In emerging democracies, foreign funding is sometimes viewed as an attempt to influence the outcome of national elections and the directions of political parties. In this case, foreign funding is regarded as something that violates the basic principle of democracy. Many ambitious individuals would explore such lapses to establish political parties as a short cut to rapid personal wealth. Foreign funding might be necessary, but it should not be tainted and tied to models from outside. There are many instances where the opposition parties boycott elections even if the elections are declare “free and fair” just to discredit the incumbents, most importantly when they realise that their chance of winning is very low and related to leadership problem is bad governance. Governance has among others, been defined as a system of values, policies, and institutions by which a society manages its economic, social, and political affairs through interactions within the state, civil society and private sector. Thus, governance comprises the mechanisms and processes for citizens and groups to articulate their interests, to work together and mediate their differences, and exercise their legal rights and obligations with rules, institutions, and practices that set limits and provide incentives for individuals, organizations and firms. Good governance refers to the question of how a society can organize itself to ensure equality of opportunity and equity (social and economic justice) for all citizens. It also promotes people-centered development. Bad governance (political, economic and social governance)-the three dimensions of governance, is among the major causes of the problems facing the nation as it is threatening to undermine the nations democratization process. The people are not allowed equal economic opportunity and freedom to participate in the political process. However, as Brainstorm Associates has noted, ‘lack of freedoms leave the people with little choice to exercise ‘their reasoned agency. He posits that ‘Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its primary means. Therefore, development (social, political and economic) ‘requires the removal of major sources on lack of freedoms, the problem with Nigeria is that the system lacks checks and balances (or mechanisms) to control the autocratic tendencies in government and to hold political actors accountable for their actions. In addition, the politicians do not practice ethical politics and their actions do not add values to the system. Lack of ‘ethical politics and values and politics of hate and destruction contribute to the economic and political hiccups in the society. However, the people should not just sit there and hope for the best; they should be politically active to get the government and the politicians to listen and act right. Political pressure from the people could determine the type of policy the government would choose for execution. Corruption is, however, a greater part of the problems facing Nigeria as it leads to poor governance, which hampers socio-political and economic development. Building a vibrant economy or restoring growth to a sluggish economy takes resources; to ensure long-term growth and prosperity Nigeria must use its resources wisely, invest in advanced technology and rebuild the institutions and infrastructure without which the economy will not gain from the ‘power of productivity. A nation enjoys higher standards of living if the workers can produce large quantity of goods and services for local consumption and extra for export. The deficiencies in the economy lead to low productivity, poor quality products and competition in the global market place. And without sustainable growth and create employment the people would lose interest in the society. The greed, ignorance, unethical practices and lack of democratic principles in political discourse are serious problems in the society. What is ethical and moral is often reduced to what the politicians say publicly to make a good impression, and not what they do. The plethora of political parties (26 political parties and growing) lacking basic democratic philosophy does not in any way represent political development. Political leaders in the House of Representatives who have been sounding the trumpet of ‘political reforms could not trim down the number of political parties to ‘two as suggested by some progressives. The reality, however, is that Nigeria does not need more than three political parties grounded in modern democratic ideologies. To trim down the number of political parties, the government should discontinue the mouth-watering grants the INEC gives to political parties; and with that those political parties that are there just to collect the grant would die away. Lack of true federalism is among the challenges facing Nigeria. The federal government has enormous power; it gives out monthly allocation to states and local governments and controls the mineral resources in their domain. Any nation toying with the federal system is expected to conform to its basic tenets without which it would not be regarded as such. The Nigerian economy may not grow and the society may not change positively until the political parties and politicians learn to play by the rule. Nigerians are tired of living in an unstable politico-economy. The political leaders do not seem to have the welfare of Nigeria at heart. As the people are slogging through the wreckage of corruption and wallowing in penury the leaders are busy painting glowing picture of their plans and mesmerize them with colorful debates on how to lead the society to the ‘Promised Land of true democracy and economic prosperity. Like other leaders before him, Jonathan has a laundry list of things to accomplish, including tackling the long-standing power problem. Nevertheless, can Jonathan meet the challenges? Can he transform Nigeria from a consumer society to a producer nation and change the nations acrimonious and polarizing politics? Painting an unrealistic rosy picture of a bad situation is not enough. The problems require realistic solutions. History has offered the world a wealth of information on how economies grow and thrive, and perhaps how economies fall. But the political leaders of Nigeria have refused to utilize the wisdom of history and follow the paths taken by leaders of successful nations. For those who may not recall, it is, however, pertinent to note that Obasanjo promised to give corruption ‘a bloody nose yet corruption blossomed; and he was at some point the Petroleum minister but fuel shortages persisted. The late Umaru Yaradua followed his footsteps and promised to declare state of emergency on power but Nigerians are still living in the dark; and he vowed to create jobs, among many other things with his Seven-Point Agenda, yet the rate of unemployment is climbing off the roof. One of the problems with Nigerian politicians is that they do not operate on any known modern democratic principles. What is the difference between Jonathan and the past leaders? What are his values? The leaders have always raised the peoples hope by starting up as individuals with progressive agenda; but the people have witnessed a sea of disappointments and thus lost confidence in the leaders. Now they doubt that the promises made by Jonathan contain any grain of truth. In other words, the people doubt he is the answer to Nigerias problems. How would he change the corrupt politicians who are benefitting from the rot in the system? There is a growing concern that he could connive with the political contractors and leave the nation with its elusive search for economic prosperity. Nigerias socioeconomic and political challenges have remained perpetually unresolved; and this casts a glaring light on the inadequacy or incompetency of the ‘home breed leadership. And if the past is prologue it does not appear that Jonathan, who is perceived as ‘messiah in some quarters, could give the society a great push forward. The complex problems facing Nigeria is not for a feeble heart. How can one give what one does not have? To address these challenges Nigeria needs a leader who can adopt progressive social policies and values and tame bribery and corruption, nepotism and tribalism and other obstacles to national development. And there is need for capacity building. Nigeria could become an economic power-house and command the attention of the international community only if it can give proper attention to education and technological development, learn to reward hard work and creativity, and ensure constant power supply and produce high quality goods and services. The people have a critical role to play in meeting the challenges facing the economy; they should become politically educated so as to make the political leaders to listen and act right. However, without good monetary policy and fiscal policy, and without good governance and transparency, the Nigerian economy will continue to shrink with high unemployment, poverty and crime. It is certainly unlikely that Jonathan would resolve all the problems facing the Nigerian economy. This writer would, however, rate him successful if he could tackle corruption and insecurity that have made good governance and sociopolitical and economic development impossible SOURCE: Citizens Tipster
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:36:59 +0000