2023 polls: Why politicians‘ll get away with bad governance – DG, NIIA

The Director-General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, Professor Eghosa Osaghae, has warned that politicians in Nigeria will continue to get away with bad governance, because the electorate had been bought over.

Osaghae, who was the lead speaker at the 2022 Senator Abiola Ajimobi Roundtable, held at the University of Ibadan, noted that if Nigeria fails to deepen democracy, it will retrogress into under-development.

Speaking on the topic ‘Deepening Nigeria’s Democracy for Sustainable Development,’ Osaghae said: “The performance and ranking in the UNDP’s Human Development Index are no less appalling and it shows an inverse correlation with the supposed strides in the deepening of electoral democracy.

“In other terms, the more democracy has grown, the less developed the country has become. We may have gone so far in our democracy, yet we’ve not gone so far in our development. There is an inverse relationship between our democratic growth and our development. Those statistics of growth conceal more than they reveal.

“Our democracy is deepening. Follow the approach and they will get better. But, the only time we get to be remembered at all is when our politicians come and we can line up behind them.