Nigeria Elites Haven’t Measured Up To Their Democracy Duties

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Showunmi, has said Nigerian elites contribute to the poor state of the country’s governance system.

Segun Showunmi said the elites have duties to guide citizens in making the right choices during leadership recruitment at every stage.

He stated this on Wednesday while speaking on Proshare’s Hard Facts interview. Showunmi regretted that the elities prefer to withdraw from the election exercise leading to citizens voting uninformed.

“The greatest pain I have and the guilt that I think is affecting our recruitment is that elites have not agreed or measured up to their responsibility in a democracy. Democracy does not give you the promise that the people at the base of the pyramid will have all the knowledge, all the experience and all the information by which to take just decision, no.

“Democracy has one silent assumption and that is that those who know within that space will take it upon themselves to educate, to inform, to carry along and to participate. So of these four things, what you see here is that the elites would rather be in business, figure out a way to get by and partner with everybody there.

“They would not really want to show up on election day because the kind of money they say they share doesn’t have any meaning for them. The whole place is too chaotic and they themselves would dare not even want to bother themselves to go and participate in the ground recruitment which is the party,” he said.

The former Ogun State PDP governorship aspirant explained that the recruitment process must be gotten right for the country to move in the right direction.

He stressed the need for citizens to take up the responsibility of holding leaders accountable to ensure good governance in the country.

Showunmi continued, “They would rather wait and wear fany ties, wait for people to finish up all the job so that then they can push their CV forward and then they can then be appointed. And then there’s always a disconnect. The citizens themselves because the elites are not engaging them, everybody has areas of influence within their family and their friends. they’re not engaging them. So really what do you expect them to pick? Do they even know what to look up for in good leadership?

“So that’s what’s affecting the recruitment and until we begin to work on it or we can do something better which is increase the level of consequence we put around governance. Because all of the other countries of the world, the kinds of things our leaders get away with here, you can’t get away with it there. Those people too don’t hate their leaders, they just want to make sure that the consciousness of consequence ensures that only the best will even dare.”