The ex-Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. John Oluwakayode Fayemi from Isan Ekiti has admitted what we knew all along, that liberal democracy is not working in this country.
He has previously served as governor of Ekiti State between 2010 and 2014 and also served as Minister of Solid Minerals Development under President Muhammadu Buhari from November 11, 2015 to May 30, 2018 before he resigned to contest for a second term as Governor of Ekiti State. He handed over as governor to his chosen successor, Mr. Abiodun Abayomi Oyebanji on October 16, last year.
At present, he is a lecturer at Kings College, University of London, his former school. After completing his studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, he joined The Guardian newspaper, before venturing into academics and later into politics.
On Tuesday September 5, this year, he made the admission on liberal democracy while delivering a key note address at a national dialogue organised to celebrate the 60th birthday of Prof Udenta Udenta, founding national secretary of Alliance for Democracy (AD).
While speaking at the event, the ex-governor criticised the “winner-takes-all” nature of Nigeria’s democracy stating that the nation’s current challenges could not be effectively addressed without adopting proportional representation, where election rewards are distributed among contestants based on their share of the vote.
“Today, I read former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s interview in The Cable saying our liberal democracy is not working and we need to revisit it, and I agree with him. We must move from the political alternatives. I think we are almost on a dead end of that.”
“What we need is alternative politics, and my own notion of alternative politics is that you can’t have 35 per cent of the vote and take 100 per cent. It won’t work! We must look at proportional representation so that the party that is said to have won 21 per cent of the votes will have 21 per cent of the government. Adversary politics bring division and enmity,” he said.
On a personal note, while I was working in Ibadan secretariat in the Ministry of Works and transport, Western State, his father’s office was opposite mine, the then Ministry of Information. When I switched to Journalism in early 1972, while working in the Nigerian Tribune, I used to visit his father, who took me like a junior brother.
His father was then working under Chief Festus Oladipo Shadare from Akure, who was then the Chief Information Officer in Western state. His dad’s colleagues at that time included my late friend, Femi Olurin from Ilaro in Ogun State, Chief Adewole Atandeyi (84), from Akure who retired as Chief Information officer in Ondo State, Mr. John Fademi (82) from Ijebu Ijesha in the present day Osun State and others.
General Yakubu Gowon (88) GCFR appointed Brigadier General Christopher Oluwole Rotimi(88), governor of Western state on April 1, 1971, likewise Brigadier Rotimi appointed Chief Samuel Kolawole Babalola(1931-2020) from Ipoti Ekiti as Commissioner for Health.
Dr. Fayemi’s father, Chief John Fadeyi Fayemi served as Information Officer under late Chief S.K Babalola. Dr Fayemi’s parents were then living at Agodi in Ibadan.
Chief Fayemi retired as a zonal information officer when Ekiti State was created. He died in 2009 at 86, just before his son became governor.
My keen interest in Dr. Fayemi grew when he went into politics in this republic and fortunate enough he has had his own share in serving the people, both at the national level and the state level. No one can predict his political future. What he has said deserved some commentary. The question I will like to ask is; who gave us this liberal democracy we are practicing?
Out of office, if these two men (Dr. Kayode Fayemi and former President Olusegun Obasanjo) are today questioning the validity of our liberal democracy, we should be worried. Afterwards empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasises evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resisting solely on a prior reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, says that “knowledge is based on experience” and that knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification”. Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the scientific method.
It is often said that it is those who wears the shoes that know where the shoes pinches.
If former President Obasanjo, who was part of the Supreme Military Council that imposed on us this Presidential System of government is part of those complaining today about liberal democracy, we have to note that something is wrong. You may not like the messenger but you must examine the message.
Except for the President, the governors, legislators and their aides including Ministers and Commissioners and probably friends, no one is benefitting from the liberal democracy. The people are getting impoverished everyday. It is no exaggeration that there is extreme poverty in the land irrespective of who is leading us.
I wonder why we are sticking to this type of democracy that is not yielding results and making us more miserable. Is there no alternative? And why must we recite every script on liberal democracy? Can’t we adopt another system of government that will be beneficial to us all? We have to admit that the liberal democracy is not working in our interest at all.
Nigerians are of the few people in the world who have never had a say in how they are being governed. What has happened in Nigeria and what is presently happening is enough to bring a revolution in other parts of the world. Everything has been imposed on us.
There are other alternatives to liberal democracy. We have Noocracy- a democracy in which only the wise and competent are allowed to stand and vote, Sociocracy- a democratic system of governance based on consent decision making, circle organization, subsidiarity and double-linked representation, New Democracy- Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong’s “Bloc of Four Classes theory in post-revolutionary China, Market democracy— another name for democratic capitalism, an economic ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on economic incentives through free markets, a democratic polity and a liberal moral-cultural system which encourages pluralism.
Others are Participatory democracy – involves more lay citizen participation in decision making and offers greater political representation than traditional representative democracy, e.g., wider control of proxies given to representatives by those who get directly involved and actually participate, Semi-direct democracy – representative democracy with instruments, elements, and/or features of direct democracy and Grassroots democracy – emphasizes trust in small decentralized units at the municipal government level, possibly using urban secession to establish the formal legal authority to make decisions made at this local level binding.
Let us look at what liberal democracy means. According to Wikipedia, “Liberal democracy, substantive democracy or western democracy is a form of government that combines the structure of a representative democracy with the principles of liberal political philosophy. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. The purpose of a constitution is often seen as a limit on the authority of the government.
A liberal democracy may take various and mixed constitutional forms: it may be a constitutional monarchy (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom) or a republic (France, India, Ireland, the United States). It may have a parliamentary system (Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, the United Kingdom), a presidential system (Indonesia, the United States), or a semi-presidential system (France). Liberal democracies are contrasted with illiberal democracies and with dictatorships.
Liberal democracy traces its origins—and its name—to the Age of Enlightenment. The conventional views supporting monarchies and aristocracies were challenged at first by a relatively small group of Enlightenment intellectuals, who believed that human affairs should be guided by reason and principles of liberty and equality.
They argued that all people are created equal and therefore political authority cannot be justified on the basis of noble blood, a supposed privileged connection to God or any other characteristic that is alleged to make one person superior to others. They further argued that governments exist to serve the people—not vice versa—and that laws should apply to those who govern as well as to the governed (a concept known as rule of law). Some of these ideas began to be expressed in England in the 17th century.
By the late 18th century, leading philosophers such as John Locke had published works that spread around the European continent and beyond. These ideas and beliefs influenced the American Revolution and the French Revolution. After a period of expansion in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy became a prevalent political system in the world.
To be continued tomorrow
Teniola, a former Director at the Presidency, wrote from Lagos.
