Nigeria and the dividents of democracy - A. Mati

BEYOND PARTY TRIVAILS AND 2019

The popular phrase “dividend of democracy” has being used since time immemorial, which is widely believed to be delivering on campaign promises that should leave people better than they were met in all gamut of life. However since the country’s sudden somersault to democracy in 1999 after years of military junta which many still share in memories. Through those years, power remained largely in the northern part of Nigeria. However, this part of the country is bedeviled with so many negative indices that kept drawing drawn the Region and the Nation at large, indices show that the Region has the highest number of out of school children especially girls which invariably result to higher level of illiteracy and hence poverty. 

Looking at the build up to 2019 elections, a lot of rhetoric’s are gathering momentum, some of which are far from reality, while some only confirm the already existing facts which is at public domain, whatever way it may take, what seems obvious is that either some of these government's policies are not properly implemented or they were never design to help avert some of these painful indices. However, I am opportune to work with a Non-Governmental Organization that focus on Girl child' education, seeing the strategies employed to bring interventions in some remote communities in Northern Nigeria. It is quite absorbed when I saw how girls in villages making some progress and changing their life for better. 

The journey of my experience began in a community that resides 2 to 3 kilometers outskirt Zaria inKaduna State, having in mind that I am to supervise the professionals hired to train the-out-of school girls on some basic entrepreneurship skills; phone repairs, bag making, soap making among many other skills. I saw how girls of ages between 15-20, mostly married were making some nice bags, while others were repairing phones, and all others. After having been to the community for some days spending much of my time interacting with the locals on issues relating to politics and how they perceived the intervention programs, quite amazing what I learned regarding how community involvement and community ownership can make a huge difference in terms of acceptability was interesting. 

The phrase “dividend of democracy” banged in my head and that made my heart ponder on what I read regarding the Present government “NEXT LEVEL” APC manifesto which has the photo of the President and his Vice with a phrase “Good for the Common Man” and the PDP Presidential candidate policy document titled “LET’S GET NIGERIA WORKING AGAIN”. Have we really enjoyed the dividend of democracy? 

The writer can be reached @ahmadmati1 on Twitter.