Nigeria as a nation has tried her hands on the representative and constitutional democracy in four different political dispensations without any national progress or democratic dividends to show for it. The first democratic dispensation from October 1, 1960 to January 15, 1966 was a big failure that was marred with official corruption, electoral frauds, tribalism, nepotism, violents and the political intimidation of opponents.
The second democratic dispensation that started on October 1, 1979 and was terminated on December 31, 1983 by a military coup was worse than the first democratic dispensation in all ramifications. The attempt that was made at the third political dispensation under the highly deceptive political transition of the former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida was the biggest political sham in Nigeria to date. The current political dispensation which is the fourth attempt at practicing democracy in Nigeria which began on May 29, 1999 has been moving Nigeria gradually toward a failed nation for the last 14 years of this democratic experimentation.
The biggest questions that are left unanswered in Nigeria today are simply these:where do we go from here as a failing nation? Is the answer that we are looking for going to be found in the 2015 elections or not? Will these representative democracy and party politics ever work in Nigeria in all reality in our own lifetime? What is the truly wrong with us as a nation that has failed this democratic examination woefully on four different times? The present political arrangement in Nigeria is structurally deficient and any attempt to build a representative democracy and the party politics on this faulty political foundation will always result in a huge democratic failure upon democratic failure.
Nigeria needs to immediately convene the most needed Sovereign National Conference of her ethnic nationalities, religious faiths and cultural groups to formally address all that is truly wrong with the Nigerian nation since its amalgamation by Lord Lugard on January 1, 1914 and her independence from Britain on October 1, 1960 as a nation in the constant national crises and democratic failures. The Sovereign National Conference will give all Nigerians the rear opportunity of a lifetime for the first time in 100 years to sit down together, talk about their differences together and then decide the most realistic constitutional path for all her federating units. If this constitutional conference fails to hold, then our democracy will never work as a nation and our nation may eventually collapse finally.
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