SIR: The utmost desire of Nigerians since the return to civil rule in 1999 is to have a crop of leaders who would be responsible and responsive enough to provide good governance that would address all their nagging problems and take them out of all their unceasing nightmares.

Yet, this desire, rather than being achieved or realised, has remained impossible while the general experience is that of moving outrightly from fry pan into fire.

Electioneering campaigns are usually filled with sweet promises by politicians struggling to grab elective posts and the masses are regularly hoodwinked to cooperate with all the electoral processes no matter how dehumanising and excruciating it could be.

In all honesty, some politicians who struggle to occupy key positions in politics are often with the strong desires to make a difference and write their names in gold. Of course there are also those whose sole aim is to capture political office with the hidden agenda for self-aggrandizement.

But on stepping into offices, both those with genuine intentions and their rapacious counterparts often discover that the door to Nigeria’s national progress is shut permanently, and there is very little anyone can do in order to either open it or alter the status quo.

With this reality confronting them like a large mountain and realising that Nigeria is already in a very dire situation they can never help, their next plan would always be to jettison all their promises to the people and focus more attention on themselves by enriching themselves and their cronies while the citizens groan under the yoke of very harsh living conditions.
Right since independence, the intrusion of the military into politics was a very sore point where Nigeria missed it and started off on a wrong footing.

At the same time the military still draws a larger chunk of the national budget every year even when obviously it has little to contribute to national development. From the onset, therefore, Nigeria’s military has always been one of the obstacles militating against national progress and that has been Nigeria’s most daunting Archiles heels.

The current nagging problem confronting Nigeria is that of insecurity which continues to ravage the entire country leading to the untimely deaths of many innocent Nigerians.

How would the incessant attacks leaving so many casualties on their trail each time be possible if the military up their game and living up to its mandate of defending Nigeria against external aggression and attacks?  What is the essence of a country’s military when invaders continually intrude into a country, kill large number of innocent citizens, set their homes ablaze in operations lasting several hours each time unchallenged?

Isn’t that a clear evidence that the military has thoroughly abandoned its roles and is simply folding its arms watching for everything to deteriorate so that the citizens may begin to clamour for a takeover of government by the military?  How can democracy succeed in an atmosphere of chaos where a nation’s military has become a law into itself?

If politicians today are living large and deaf to the yearnings of the citizens, they are merely trying to tow the line left by their military predecessors who stole trillions of the national wealth without anyone bold or strong enough to ask them any questions. Given this catastrophic background therefore, anyone hoping to have a successful democracy in Nigeria must be living in a fool’s paradise
Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria.