Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke has described poverty has a strong impediment to the practice and survival of democracy and must be addressed effectively.
He added that resolving national economic challenges is a precursor to enhancing democratic culture and ensure productive participation of the citizenry in the process.
A statement issued by the Governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed on Monday, stated that an economic viable society guarantees the survival of democracy.
“A foundation we cannot leave out is the economic platform of the society practicing democracy. A hungry citizenry is likely to pose a serious threat to a credible electoral democratic process. Efforts to stabilise the economic life of the nation are also strong preconditions for an empowered citizenry. Addressing poverty and catering for citizens’ economic requirements will go a long way to enhance the potency of the population”, the Governor affirmed.
“Conditionalities such as a truly fair electoral umpire and impartial security agencies are strong complements to an active citizenry. We must add that voters must also eschew vote selling to ensure the manifestation of their will not only at the ballot but during the governance process.
“In the last elections, we saw a hyper level of citizen mobilisation across the electoral cycle. Even when low turnout is still a nagging question, we must accept that citizen’s electoral militancy was the hottest in Nigeria’s political history. We can then arguably posit that the citizenry has woken up from their slumber and are prepared to enforce a functional, people- based electoral process”, it noted.
According to Adeleke, Nigeria must uphold certain basic democratic norms for citizens’ participation to yield needed results. The democratic culture grows and flourishes when all the electoral and governance sub-sectors play their parts within the context of due process and rule of law.
“To strengthen citizens’ role in democracy and governance, our administration introduced a truly people -based style built on open governance principles and people first practices. Our Government is addressing workers’ needs in ways that ensure both formal and informal workers are revived from years of neglect. We are upgrading the state of our infrastructure to boost local economy, enhance inter and intra town connectivity and fight poverty of social amenities.
“On the issue of accountability and transparency, we are working to host the first elaborate public accountability forum later this month. At the open forum , we will present our scorecards and provide a productive citizen participation opportunity in the governance process.
“We must be aware that no democracy is perfect. From Europe to North America, democracy is still a work in progress. In Africa, we are in a state of convulsion within the democratic space. We however have no option than to continue the experimentation until we reach close to perfection”, the Governor added.
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