Nigeria’s Western democracy has failed, says Agbakoba

Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, has proposed a new form of governance for Nigeria.

Agbakoba asserted that Nigeria has not benefited from the Western democratic liberal model at the same time.

When he was answering questions on Arise Television’s Morning Show on Friday, he made this clear.

“A consociational democracy, where we build our institutional democracy around our institutions,” was the proposal put forth by Agbakoba.

“To allow me to provide some conceptual and contextual background about where we are and the problem, I believe that the fundamental issue is that the Western democratic liberal model has failed,” he stated. As you are aware, Nigeria has spent 25 years—since 2000—working on a new constitutional process with no results.

It’s time, in my opinion, to reconsider and reframe our democratic experience. It is ineffective, exclusive, and polarizing. There is a lot of fighting. It is a winner-take-all situation. No one wants to be in the opposition; everyone wants power.

You see the opposition, people all jumping into the APC. The process is not working. So personally, I would advocate something homegrown, autonomous, what I call consociational democracy, where we build our institutional democracy around our institutions.

“I am a very strong person in finding a role for traditional rulers. King Charles is the constitutional monarch of the United Kingdom, and he has a role to play. He’s going to Canada. He’s playing a role in the trade process. He’s got a good deal with Trump. So I think our constitutional process should include the traditional rulers. I will recommend the Belgium model, where the Walloons and the Flemings are different people, but they’ve come to an arrangement whereby there is inclusion.”

He recommended that the first point is to discard the Western democratic liberal model, adding that it is not working.

“It’s something that enables only a few to extract. If return on capital exceeds return on development, why would anybody want to develop Nigeria?These are the two main ideas that I believe should be considered when rethinking a new Nigerian experiment. Otherwise, as I keep saying, I began at 29. I’m 72 now. Isn’t it time to consider a different approach if something hasn’t worked for so long? He said.

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