Professor Akin
Oyebode:
A Professor of Law and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law,
University of Lagos. He chairs the International Law and Jurisprudence as well
as the University’s International Relations, Partnership and Prospects unit; he
was a former Dean and Vice Chancellor at the Ondo State University and
University of Ado Ekiti Respectively. He was also a delegate at the just
concluded National Conference,
He was the guest speaker at an event titled THE POWER OF YOUR VOTE (a
catalyst for stable and united Nigeria), the program was to commemorate the birthday
of one of the more forthright and enduring men of God in the land, the
inimitable and highly celebrated Bishop Mike Okonkwo, founder and chief
motivator of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission, better known by its acronym,
TREM.
In his address Professor Oyebode x-rayed the democratic praxis in Nigeria as against other democracies around the globe in a way that makes for interesting reading as you will soon find out below.
INTRODUCTION
It is nearly universally agreed
that perhaps the most important determinant of the democratic process lies in
the capacity of the electorate to choose in a free, fair and credible manner
those who are to exercise political power and authority over them from time to
time. Less enthusiastic or, perhaps, one
might say, less charitable doubters of the electoral process in bourgeois
societies would argue that “elections merely afford the masses once every four
or five years the chance to select their oppressors and executioners”!
Yet, as Winston Churchill once
observed, democracy was the worst form of government aside from all the others!
So, as bad as things might look under a democratic dispensation, especially,
bearing in mind our experience here in Nigeria, it should be admitted that the
world has been unable to fashion another system that can better offer dividends
to the people at large than what democracy does. Despite its steep learning curve, especially
in our own circumstances, democracy, it would seem, continues to fire the
imagination of many and is perceived by them as the silver bullet capable of
extinguishing most, if not all of society’s woes.
