Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has said that elected Nigerian
leaders have abandoned their people to their own devices, though the leaders
are actually serving the mandate bestowed on them by the people.
Tambuwal was speaking yesterday at
the 10th Annual Trust Dialogue organised by Media Trust Limited, publishers of
the Trust newspapers.
According to him, the principle of
representative democracy in which people lend their collective powers to a few
individuals is being abused by the leaders.
“Leaders behave as if the people owed
us rather than the other way round. Once we get power, we become selfish and
arrogant and forget that we are servants of the people and not masters of the
universe,” said Tambuwal.
He added that democracy is built on
the idea that “the people are sovereign and power belongs to them. However,
since the people cannot exercise this power directly, they elect some amongst
them to exercise it on their behalf. In simple terms, those who are called
leaders hold their positions not by any divine law, but by the leave of the
people. They are only leaders by proxy.”
Tambuwal stated that to locate the
answer to the national question rocking the country, the leadership structure
has to be critically examined. He said often-times leaders misuse the powers
vested in them to satisfy selfish ends.
Conflicts, according to him, are a
common feature of a nation with diverse cultural experiences.
He said some problems bedeviling the
country are normal ones, noting, “It is the ability to constantly see beyond
these differences to the bonds that hold us together that is key to our
success.”
Dialogue, the speaker maintained, is
the only way of deepening democratic culture in the country.
“We must keep having these dialogues.
As long as we talk to one another, no matter how differently we understood the
issues, we shall, in the end, be better off.”
Tambuwal further stated that
nation-building is a continuous process in which issues will keep evolving and
citizens are given the right to fully exploit their potentials. He said it was
for that reason that the National Assembly moved to “fashion out a document
that better reflects the reality on the ground.”
He said: “The challenges of nation
building in a place like Nigeria are many and sometimes messy. The diversity of
culture and character; the difference in religion and tradition; the clear gap
in values and orientation; and the dubious legacy of our colonial history, make
the prospect appear daunting.”
The speaker warned: “Unless we do
something about the infrastructure deficit, the debilitating corruption, crass
insecurity, among many other challenges, our people will remain poor and life
expectancy will drop further.”
In his opening remarks, chairman of
Media Trust Limited, Malam Kabiru Yusuf, said the Dialogue series, which was
started a decade ago, was meant to serve as a platform for healthy debates on
burning issues in the polity.
He regretted that 10 years since the
commencement of the series, the concerns that informed its initiation have not
been resolved.
Source: Blueprint
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