Democracy and the right to make bad choices

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently said that Nigeria is speedily becoming a failed state under the leadership of President Tinubu. He said chaos, insecurity, conflict, discord, division, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence and underdevelopment are now permanent occurrences.

The former president correctly asserts that the reason people voted for this government was that they expected improvements in their lives, and government has no right to make life uncomfortable for them.  However, it’s also true that the poor governance did not start with the current administration. There is no denying that since 1999, each successive civilian government, including Obasanjo’s, only succeeded in increasing poverty and making the nation a worse place to live.

Nigerian democracy is failing simply because it is founded on the false assumption that the electorate is sufficiently wise, rational, informed and responsible enough to make good choices.

In Western democracies, voters improve their lives by making choices based upon the application of reason, logic, science and humanism. In Nigeria, voters make choices based upon tribe, religion, faith and superstition because they rely on emotions, social connections and misinterpretation of religious injunctions which are inconsistent with their best interests.

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Indeed it is a mistake in a country like Nigeria to assume that the majority can be trusted to make good choices or fair and wise decisions.

The inherent problem with democracy is that the number of people who believe in something is actually irrelevant to whether that thing is true or not, just as the number of people who believe that someone is the best is irrelevant to whether or not indeed he is! In the sciences such as health or engineering, no sensible person thinks the majority opinion is more important than expert opinion. In democracy the will of the majority actually means that the votes of two uncompassionate idiots are worth more than the vote of one compassionate wise man.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America’s democracy said that since government for the people should be determined by the people, when the people are not fit to determine what is in their best interest, the solution is not to change the form of government but rather to provide a better general education which will make them fit to make better choices.

There can be no disputing that our currently dilapidated educational infrastructure and inappropriate syllabus cannot breed an intelligent population. Those in charge of the system seem to be pre-occupied with the age of children entering higher education rather than the content of the syllabus.

Compared to China where children are creating things for the betterment of their tomorrow, Nigerian children are denied opportunities for functional education resulting in almost everything we consume being produced abroad.

The biggest disease or natural disaster destroying Nigeria is political leaders who don’t really care about the creativity of the Nigerian child because of their personal greed and selfishness!

The thought of returning to military rule should be rejected out of hand. It will ultimately be more beneficial for Nigerians to examine and understand why our democracy consistently fails to uplift citizens. Good democracies rest on three pillars; the will of the people, trust in politicians and strong institutions.

Unfortunately INEC has destroyed the first, political leaders the second and government the third! Choice in Nigerian democracy is an illusion because there really is no difference between the two major political parties. Neither the All Progressives Congress (APC) nor Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is based on any overriding political philosophy; both have hidden the extent to which they tolerate corruption, neither has been able to provide peace and security throughout the nation, and both believe that political office holders have “the right” to live the lives of luxury at public expense.

The majority of Nigerians now understand that our political class lacks clear ideological principles and the two dominant parties remain soul mates when it comes to misgoverning! In reality, the only reason Nigerian democracy has not completely failed is because of the tolerance of Nigerians who bear increased suffering with fortitude, and have accepted the fact that cruelty, selfishness and ignorance have become the hallmark of Nigerian political leadership. The inherent problem with democracy as a whole is that the most popular gets elected, not the most competent and just because someone is popular doesn’t mean he is the best person for the job.

The nation is undeniably divided and the divisions are being exploited by political actors who take advantage of opportunities to enrich themselves and their families. Nigerian democracy is built around constitutional arrangements in which the rule of law (many of which are bad laws) is far more important than the will of the people.

Very often, there is no real choice between contestants and whichever of them emerges victorious will be a bad decision! Nigerian voters habitually make ill-informed, non-rational and illogical bad choices which don’t reflect what they really want.

The real problem is that democracy permits people to be foolish and make decisions which are not in their best interests. It gives them the right to elect leaders who do not have their best interests at heart.

As long as unpatriotic ignorant voters outnumber intelligent patriotic ones and exercise their right to make bad choices, the light at the end of the tunnel will grow further and further away.