Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigerian Election: Let us Try the Lottery System

The ethno-religious diversity of Nigeria will continue to be a problem until the present leadership group or cabal as it is often referred to is uprooted. A revolution in the sense of the Chinese, Russian or French revolution is improbable considering our general level of education, enlightenment and ethno-religious polarisation. If this leadership group can be uprooted, honestly, i dont know how,short of making them disappear. The ordinary people on the streets of Ijebu-ode, Ikot-ekpene, Oturkpo, Bama, Nkalagu, Sokoto actually want Nigeria to work. Just go to a market in Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Porharcourt, Calabar, Maiduguri and see how they relate and transact business and you ll realise the leaders that exploit ethnicity and religion are the problem.

My proposal has been termed childish and unworkable- grassroot movements owned by the people in Ikot ekpene, Aba, Ososa, Minna, Yobe, Kaduna, Sokoto, Offa akin to landlord/tenants associations organised by people not interested in political leadership at all. These grassroot movements will have a common name (I am suugesting 3rd Force) on every street all over Nigeria, meet, contribute five naira (N5) each, chose their own leaders and have the goal of chosing the councillor, chairman and all political leaders in their area in 2023. The mantra that unites the movement will be everything that ordinary people want, for example, seating allowance only for legislators and similar unifying ideas to reduce governance cost and attract the right leadership. They start meeting from today!!! 

The Sowores and the other 92? that contested in the last presidential elections who can bury their ambition to be president or a new set of grassroot organisation network mobilisers that cuts accross the country can achieve this PEACEFULLY. The alternative is UNPRINTABLE!!!

Babatunde JAIYEOBA

Prof. E. Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhD

Department of Architecture

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

ebjaiye@oauife.edu.ng; tundejaiyeoba@yahoo.co.uk; +234 8037880023

On ‎Wednesday‎, ‎27‎ ‎February‎ ‎2019‎ ‎15‎:‎12‎:‎26‎ ‎WAT, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Samuel Zalanga, using this forum, has warned us many times and suggested models that can deliver development.

The problem, though, is that Nigerian scholars and thinkers are very much embedded in the ethnic projects and identitarian politics, thus creating a strumbling bloc for the emergence of solid alternative voices.

My view is repetitive: this democracy is not delivering development; it is wasteful; it is corrupt; and it generates divisions that can lead to a civil war.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of moses <meochonu@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 8:07 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigerian Election: Let us Try the Lottery System

 

Nimi, thanks for posting this essay. I'll read it carefully after my class but I wanted to write to say how much I appreciate the out-of-the-box thinking. This Western-style liberal democracy is not working in Africa. It is a threat to the stability of many states and it is impoverishing our people. We need to get creative in reworking democracy to suit each country's peculiar socioeconomic, historical, and cultural conditions. In the frenzy to "democratize" in the 1990s, we let Western prodemocracy donors and governments browbeat us into adopting their kind of democracy. It is killing us, literally. We need to reconsider this zero-sum, winner-takes-all democracy. Our African traditional system is based on consensus and collective governance, not on this adversarial system of liberal democracy. I'm writing an essay on this and it will be published by an American magazine.

 

On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 7:36 AM Nimi Wariboko <nimiwari@msn.com> wrote:

Dear All:

 

As we debate, decry, or celebrate the results of the Nigerian presidential election I want to put before you another option for choosing leaders or legislators in the country: the alternative method of election by lot, sortition. I published an essay on this in September 2017 in the Premium Times and the link is provided below. Since I published this essay I have been contacted my many people all over the world who have been pushing for a similar method of selection of leaders in democratic countries. Ireland employs something like this in its political system; deploying it when dealing with the constitutional prohibition against abortion. Kofi Annah before he died started advocating for the lottery system of selection.  

https://opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2017/09/22/election-by-lottery-a-new-approach-to-nigerian-democracy-by-nimi-wariboko/

 

Thanks,

Nimi Wariboko

Boston University

United States

 

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