June 12: Nigeria is not practising democracy but politics – Mike Ozekhome SAN

Chief Mike Ozekhome SAN, has stated that the present administration and politicians should not pay much lip service to June 12 as democracy day, as what the country is practising is politics and not democracy. The legal luminary made the assertion when he featured alongside other guests, on AIT’s Focus Nigeria programme, with the theme; Democracy Special, yesterday. According to him, the regions that make up Nigeria today, were forcefully brought together by the colonial imperialist, therefore, there must be restructuring that will involve devolution of powers to the states. “We are not building strong institutions but strong individuals and that is why issues like nepotism and other challenges confronting the nation keep lingering. “Nigeria is not practising democracy but politics, because people who were paupers yesterday are now billionaires today. “This is because of lucrativeness of politics which makes people to mame, kill and do all sort of things to get to power,” he said. He queried the Federal Government’s business in building secondary schools, licencing of motorcycles or even building Correctional Centres, while all these according to him should be the sole responsibilities of state governments. Chief Ozekhome stated that what the country needs to move forward is fiscal federalism. “We are not saying we should go back to regionalism,” he added. In his own contribution, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, a human rights activist, said past and present administration have all gotten it wrong, as they need nobody to tell them the right thing to do if they aspire for offices. In his words; “How is it that the system is not working, how is it that we have an INEC Nigerians no longer trust, or the political parties that lacked ideologies? He queried. He said Chief M K O Abiola’s appeal was not about ethnicity or religion, but the Nigerianess in every Nigerians. In the same vein, Yinka Odumakin, Afenifere Spokesperson, said conferring GCFR on late Abiola, or GCON on Babagana Kingibe, his then running mate, will not bring back the yearnings of Nigerians over June 12. He posited that restructuring remains the solution, as politicians have divided the country along ethnic and religious lines for their own selfish interests.