By Ayodele Oni

A Political Scientist hàs observed that democracy in Nigeria, the way it is being practised, is very weak.

Prof Jeremiah Omotola, Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC), Administration of Federal University, Oye, Ekiti (FUOYE), has, therefore, advocated urgent strengthening of Political institutions in the Country to ensure credible elections which would guarantee strong democracy.

He was delivering an inaugural lecture, titled “The Troubled Trinity: Elections, Democracy and Development in Nigeria”,  as part of activities marking the 5th and 6th combined Convocation ceremonies of FUOYE.

“The process of conducting the political parties’ internal affairs is fraught with deficiencies, they are nothing but undemocratic;  no internal democracy, and this makes the political parties fail as building blocks of democracy.

“Weak opposition parties currently in the Nigerian polity is identified as another issue against Nigeria having strong democracy.

“Opposition parties are largely and seriously fragmented and autocratic with the result that virtually all of them are incapable of providing alternative Government, when the foregoing issues are there weak democracy is inevitable.”

Prof Omotola pointed out that global bodies have scored Nigeria very low and adjudged its democracy as very weak saying that this development calls for concern.

“Weak democracy in Nigeria has led to so many problems such as unemployment, widespread poverty, uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities and lack of basic social amenities among others.

“Due to the shortcomings in the integrity of our elections, it is likely for Nigerians to have weak democracy.

“In my comparative research, I was able to find out that our democracy is still very weak and it is largely connected to the poor integrity and poor quality of our elections.

“Unless those weaknesses and contradictions are addressed, it is going to be extremely difficult for our elections to promote democracy and when democracy is not deep and strong, development is going to be faulty for years.”

The DVC also lamented gender inequality in the Political system in the country which he stated was not in tandem with democratic emancipation.

Prof Omotola identified gender inequality as an impediment to progress by preventing the provision of viable platforms for adequate representation. While observing that no country could survive without paying attention to gender equity in politics,

He gave statistics of the absymal performance and representation of women in the Nigerian polity since the emergence of democratic rule in 1999.

He stated  in particular that only seven women have dared to contest the Nigerian presidency since we began democracy and none of them have performed significantly well inspite of the fact that ours is a country that have a male versus female population ratio of 50:50, if not that women are even more than men in population.

He also lamented that of about 74 women who have contested Governorship polls in the country, none has won.

“In terms of symbolic representation in politics, women in Nigeria are far behind. This has made it very difficult for Laws that would favour the women to be made in the country.”

Another challenge facing democracy, he added has to do with the appointment of non professionals to handle conduct of elections in the country.

Prof Omotola cited an instance where a Vetinary Doctor was appointed as the national chairman of the nation’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), adding that such development amounts to “a deficiency, a capacity gap.”

The University don, also pointed out that lNEC’s operations are being centralized to the detriment of federating states that should be allowed to have independent electoral bodies to cater for their peculiarities.

“We claim to practice a federation but all powers are virtually centralized at the detriment of the federating states. This makes INEC the only body conducting elections for all the states.”

He, therefore, suggested that INEC should be unbundled and made to delegate the conduct of elections and not centralize it.

“In terms of ideology, in Nigeria today, it is absolutely impossible to talk about differences in ideology of political parties as we have the same political gladiators in all the parties leading to easy cross carpeting and impeding their capacity to play the role of building blocks of democracy.”

On possible panacea to have strong democracy, the don advised that there was the need for urgent strengthening of Political institutions in the Country to ensure credible elections which would guarantee strong democracy.

The Professor of Comparative Politics, added that strong democracy, when achieved, would lead to meaningful growth and development for Nigeria.

He, therefore, urged the Federal Government to promote quality, free and fair elections that would build strong democracy.

He also recommended that government should give autonomy to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying that autonomy and electoral administration must be handled by independent, professional and competent institutions.