A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Olisa Agbakoba, believes Nigeria’s model of democracy needs a rejig and has faulted members of the opposition for collapsing their structures for the ruling party — the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Agbakoba says the country’s current democratic setup “is not working” and questioned the level of commitment by politicians in Nigeria, whom he accused of being only interested in grabbing power.

“I thought that things would have been a lot better than what we have today. And I’ve looked at it very carefully, and I say something must be wrong, that after, not even 25, let’s go to 1960: so we have had military coups in and out, then finally democracy for over 25 years. Something is fundamentally wrong in a process that is not delivering,” Agbakoba said on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.

He said, “in my reflections, and I’ve reflected quite a lot, I just came to a conclusion that it’s time to shed ourselves of this Western model – the Oyibo model, the model that the Europeans and the Americans have foisted on us – it’s not working.”

According to him, Nigerians are only interested in a system that provides the basic necessities of life for them.

“If you ask Nigerians, broadly speaking, right now: ‘Who would you want to vote for?’ They will just tell you we want to vote for food in our tummies, good schools, good roads, pay us our salaries on time, housing — the things that make them comfortable,” the senior advocate said, citing China’s growth despite the country not practicing democracy.

“Nigerians are not really interested in who the president is. They’re interested in a president who will deliver. That’s why it’s necessary to also be sure that you have a good president.”

Defection Won’t Strengthen Democracy

He said Nigeria must begin to think about a system that works for the generality of the people since the Western model of democracy is “certainly not working” in the country.

“So I want the conversation to start by asking the question. Is this thing working for us?

“My own answer is that the Western model of democracy, maybe it’s working in Europe, but it’s certainly not working here. So, what is it that we can put on the table that will work?

“I think that the first thing to do is to recognize that this country is very divided along ethnic, religious, and linguistic lines,” Agbakoba said.

His comment comes amid the wave of defections from opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress, a development Agbakoba says won’t help the country.

“If the opposition thinks that they’re making any sense, I’d better tell them tonight they’re not. And if they think they have a chance for 2027, they have two years to wake up,” the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said.

“But if the answer is to keep defecting, that’s not going to help Nigerians because it will not strengthen democracy. It would rather weaken it, and that’s the big shame. So, in reality, the real challenge is, ‘Where are those people who are prepared to sacrifice to be in the opposition and make it work?’ That is the challenge. That is the only way that Nigeria can work.” (Channels TV)