Ex-NERC boss, political analyst harp on people-oriented democracy in Nigeria

The former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr Sam Amadi has described Nigeria’s political culture as hybrid and undemocratic.

Amadi in an interview, the nation’s politics is underlined by an authoritarian system.

He revealed that democracy consists of people voting an idea of accountability, quality, liberty, freedom and sharing beliefs about their political system.

He added that Nigeria is democratic in the norm of governance election but in the practised norm, “we are mostly authoritarian.”

While condemning the rate at which politicians fly abroad for various meetings, Amadi said, “Democracy requires that political conversation be focused around the will of the people as against personal interest, it means that there will be less authoritarian norms and practices.”

On his part, a public interest commentator, Remi Adebayo, said a democratic dividend can not be justifiable if we are to look at the kind of resources that have gone through the country since 1999 proportional to the infrastructure we have.

He noted that some individuals and public officials are reported or found to have looted public resources, ” in such amount that the public is wondering where they took all those things from when the citizens themselves are faced with illiteracy and do not have access to health care, when the air space is not accessible and when they can not move on the road because of insecurity or poor state of those road and more.”

He said to a large extent Nigeria and Nigerians are not feeling the impact of democratic governance as it is supposed to be.

But with the new process unveiled by the federal government on Tuesday, citizens can directly respond to government and report on issues of accountability while projects and programs and policies will help our democratic system ” he said.

“Democracy is until when power is totally restored to the people,” Adebayo added.