Tinubu, Governors Need To Be Worried About Despondency Among Nigerians – Dogara

BY ADEYEMI AKANJI, BAUCHI – Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has stressed the need for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and governors of the 36 states of the federation to be very worried and concerned about the despondency among Nigerians.

This was as he decried what he called the new order in Nigeria’s democracy where disagreement is taken for disloyalty, stressing that all healthy democracies are noisy because disagreements lead to progress in democracy.

He particularly lamented that most Nigerian families are seriously hurting and going to bed every night hungry.

Dogara, who for the first time since the conduct of the 2023 elections, charged President Tinubu, State Governors and leaders of the country to as a matter of urgency, quickly address the feeling of hopelessness among Nigerians as a result of worsening poverty.

The former Speaker who stated these on Saturday, December 9, 2023, while delivering an address at Achievers University, Owo, Ondo State, on the occasion of the Institution’s 13th Convocation/16th Foundation Anniversary, noted that the threat poverty poses to democracy was apparent in the level of vote-buying and use of money to compromise electoral and security officials during recent elections.

Dogara further said; “I have said before, that poverty is by far the greatest threat to our democracy. Those who doubted me have seen that threat manifest itself in vote buying and in the use of money to compromise electoral and security officials.

“On account of the sense of despondency and powerlessness that poverty breeds amongst the poor, the poor have and will always remain ever-ready tools in the hands of tyrants and demagogues, who in the course of history, have always found it easy to mobilise to subvert democratic institutions”.

The former Speaker therefore challenged President Tinubu, State Governors, and all leaders to rise to the responsibility of their offices to eliminate poverty, starting with the twin evils of underemployment and unemployment, which he described as bedmates of poverty.

He further said; “If we don’t ever make it to the point where we can have a rational conversation about economic justice, it would not be because it’s impossible to achieve but because we lack the right leadership.

“We have talked so much about ending so many things in Nigeria, now is the time to talk about creating wealth and ending poverty.

“Permit me to also say that for all elected officials, including Mr president, who ran for something as opposed to running against someone; this is the moment they ought to be bothered because we are living in a deeply troubled democracy as nearly all Nigerian families are hurting.

“Only God knows how many Nigerians go to bed hungry each night. Although no rational individual would attribute our present deprecating decay to Tinubu’s administration which is still in its infancy, the truth is that he knew about it and promised to find solutions before assuming office,” Dogara said.

He said that if Tinubu does not resist the temptation to continue blaming others for our national decay rather than concentrating on the solutions he promised, what would be the distinguishing mark of his Presidency because that was what other presidents before him specialised in – outsourcing the blame and never taking responsibility.

He therefore counselled Tinubu to confront the challenges head-on, saying that nothing can be conquered unless it is confronted.

The former Speaker said that enabling the executive, no matter how kind and well-intentioned it may be, to exercise legislative powers through entrenched proxies in the legislature, is not an act of fidelity, but apostasy to our constitutional order.

In his words; “Sadly, strong leaders and executive-imposed leaders of the legislature, more often than not, interpret disagreement as disloyalty. Now that we live amid a pandemic of sycophancy, by modern-day standards, disagreement is synonymous with disloyalty.

“How can the legislature discharge its constitutional functions without let and hindrance when active collusion is seen by the Executive as a precondition for maintaining a seat at the table?

“Sadly, nothing hurts a democracy more than conflict avoidance and selective blindness. In any case, all healthy democracies are noisy because we have to disagree as much as we agree in order not to stymie progress.

“So much can be said about the abounding constitutional powers of the legislature which are never fully exercised, just for us to appreciate the reasons why the legislature is necessary in the first place and why it must never allow itself to be suborned by the executive into abdicating its constitutional role.

“If you don’t understand the purpose of a thing, you are condemned to abuse it and in this case, if the legislature does not understand its role, it will continue to be the President, Governors’ houses with the Senate President and Speakers at all levels just living in them as tenants,” he posited.