DEMOCRACY, ELITES AND INEQUALITY IN NIGERIA.

DEMOCRACY, ELITES AND INEQUALITY IN NIGERIA.

BY:

MUDASSIR ALIYU YUNUSA

mudassiray@gmail.com

     It is vividly known that Nigeria is naturally endowed with abundant treasures (especially underground material resources) as well as vast nature of economic and wealth potentialities, the country is among the oil rich nations in the world, this made Nigeria to posses higher economic power in Africa and global economic esteem. This would be a blessing to the country but looking at the inner desperate condition its citizens particularly the masses who are the majority are facing seriously, the blessing have now became a problem especially with drastic fall in the price of oil in international market couple with the suffering and worst economic and social condition as well as wide gap of inequality between bourgeoisies and the masses in the country.

   In any democratic set up there is bound to have equal treatment amongst the citizens no matter what, the principle of rule of law and the fundamental human rights dictates that there must be impartial treatment within the state and individual liberty is guaranteed to every citizen like Freedom of speech and expression, right to life and to participate in either partisan or non partisan politics, and it is a right and duty for govt to provide welfare to all and sundry of the citizens irrespective of their status, tribes and political affiliations. With this the  line of inequality between the haves and have not in the country will be filled especially when it comes to provision of public goods by govt. But to be honest our democracy failed to sanitize the diversities between the elites and the common man or otherwise called ordinary(third class) citizens. We all know for long there is wide gap in both social and economic standard of living in Nigeria in such a way that inequalities clearly manifested in almost all the spheres of human interactions.

     In 2008 and 2009 the report of the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) stated that “the level of income inequality between the rich and  the poor in Nigeria is among the highest in the world so also the level of  poverty which created and attributed to high income inequality. The highly unequal income distribution including the access to basic infrastructures, education, training and job opportunities.

It is believed that  65% of Nigerian assets are in the hand of 20% of the country’s population, while the remaining 35% goes to the 80% of the population”. This indices has been in progress up to this time For example, education is a civil right that has to be given equally to all citizens by their government, but government also gave this right to public to establish private schools with little supervision which further compounded the problem of educational inequality between the rich and the poor, and the availability of private schools rendered  many public schools neglected and left without proper funding, and also chained with some problems capable of downgrading the standard and quality of education.  Inadequate teaching materials, lack of good laboratories, libraries and research centres among others are the reason why well to do people enroll their children in private schools for better learning and studies. the condition our public universities are facing make some of our leaders and other well to do people to send their children to study abroad to avoid academic obstruction and setback because of the frequent and to some extend unnecessary industrial action.

   Inequality also manifested in  health sector, especially in public hospitals where high rate of  aggressiveness to the less privilege patients particularly when it comes to surgery, amazingly there is fixed day for theatre and  in most cases poor patients must have to wait for the scheduled date and time for surgical operation sometimes even if there is need for emergency action, while the elites are using private Hospitals or even flying oversea visiting international specialist Health centres for a mere medical checkup and investigation and Most of our Doctors are abandoning their routine operations in public hospitals and concentrate much in private hospitals. All these inequalities and ineffectiveness need to be harmonized in health sector.

     There is also geographical inequalities between the rich and the poor, the inability of our governments to provide available housing  for the benefit of the people especially the masses brought about the level of geographical segregation between the rich and the poor which is clearly shown, the former occupy big houses mostly located in well planned areas like GRA’s, Layouts, government’s special Lodges and estates with available social amenities capable of providing fresh and conducive atmosphere and life enabling while the latter are squatting and managing their unplanned ghetto settlement with little or no basic amenities like portable drinking water, adequate electricity, good drainage facilities etc. This also shows the prevailing geographical inequality in Nigeria.

     From the economic point of view inequalities prevailed even in the process of tax collection where most of the rich people are fully engage in tax evasion or defaults in paying their tax rate but the middle class and the masses are regularly force to pay their taxes as and when due, sometimes they were even made to pay before the collection of their income especially public workers through the system of Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE).

 Job opportunities are fused with greater unequal treatment in the country, where job vacancies are available, the process of getting the job is fully corrupted with unethical behaviours, offer of appointment are usually given base on ethnic and tribal lines, a mere show up and presentation of aptitude tests and interviews are conducted but only those that have somebody by their side and that person must be a figure  or a senior stakeholder got the privilege to be offered employment. Therefore, the principle of meritocracy in most cases is inapplicable and ineffective but rather nepotism and who is who among the people, infact this is a serious threat to national cohesion and integrity of our dear country.

     Inequality also manifested in the political affairs of the country because most of the time some very vital, sensitive and important political offices/appointments/ranks are given out to the people that usually come from famous and popular family mostly the ruling family. Likewise in Nigeria in most cases for you to contest and win election you must use your money to secure people votes and or to finance some party caucus/ official, electoral officers as well as security agents. In this case money matters and if you are not rich enough you dont deserve to be elected no matter how eligible, credible or accountable you are.

     So, if we want to maintain our national integrity and to register sustainable development, the overwhelming nature of inequalities must be wiped out, we need to have altruist leaders who will serve the masses and fight against any form of partiality and corruption. At the same time, leaders should uphold the legacy of honesty, trustworthy, patience and abide by the laws of the land. This will bring equality and economic well being; social justice and political fair play, hence National unity, integrity and development will prevail.

MUDASSIR write from NTA Zaria.