GETTING NIGERIA’S DEMOCRACY TO WORK: THE ROLE OF THE TRI-SECTOR

A week ago, the world celebrated the international day of democracy as it has been doing for over a decade. Savouring the optimism this initiative portends will be incomplete without a critical reflection on the gains and pains of the journey to democratic consolidation in Nigeria and an engagement of the ongoing conversations on the need for a formidable partnership between state and non-state actors in propagating the gospel of democracy. Since the third wave of democratization in Africa, successive governments have come under intense pressures for democratic reforms, from within and without, embodied through expressions of discontent with economic hardship and political repression, as well as demands for social justice and security. The responses to these pressures signaled the rebirth of democracy in Nigeria, and indeed other parts of Africa, but this was not without throwing up some problems in its way.

One such problem is the increasing difficulty to divorce coercion and auto-centrist tendencies from the daily life of a people who are accustomed to ‘gun-shot’ leadership. A miniscule example of this phenomenon is an awry experience I recently had with a public grants office in my university where I challenged a perceived service deficiency. What should normally count as a civil conversation within an intelligentsia was soon to turn the other way when I was threatened to ‘fall in line’ or withdraw my application for a voted conference grant. Such is the fad of quite a number of public institutions in Nigeria going by recent reports of the National Bureau of Statistics on public service delivery. This problem is a wicked one because it renders economic growth and social development incommode and threatens to unseat the rule of law, if not effectively addressed. To the extent that the government cannot by itself bring about the needed improvement in the standard of living of the woman at Bodija market or the fisherman in Otuoke, or even the office clerk at Zaria calls for a rethinking of our governance strategies. This rethinking has to include a reconfiguration of the spaces and scope of participation of non-state actors such as markets and the civil society in the processes of policy development. This is what is called ‘tri-sector collaboration’ by liberal democrats. Democracy will be shunted if the government does not constantly engage the private sector and civil society organizations, and open up to emerging models of public service delivery brought to the table by these sectors. One country that understands the value of tri-sector collaboration is Singapore. In her recent acceptance speech, Madam Halima Yacob – Singapore’s first female and second Malay president-elect, stressed the need to ‘do good together’ by working tirelessly with workers’ unions, community groups, religious groups, and other sections of the Singaporean society in the performance of public duties. This has been the hallmark of the enviable socio-economic and political progress Singapore has made since adopting democratic reforms, despite having faced similar colonial conditions as Nigeria’s, and didn’t gain independence until five years after ours. Nigeria needs to remodel her public policy landscape to accommodate inputs from market institutions and the civil society if she is to achieve anything similar to Singapore’s. For this to be achieved, the orientation and capacity of public servants towards public policy and governance have to be deepened and here is what an independent policy think-tank organization like the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP) strives to achieve through her diverse activities.

At ISGPP, we believe that providing first-hand public service research, exceptional leadership training and manpower development for the 21st century public service, and evidence-based policy advocacy, among other things, are potent catalysts for getting governments to work better than they currently do in entrenching inclusive development, good governance and democracy in Nigeria. Our target is to develop and transform both public and private sector professionals, through our various graduate programs in Public Administration and Public Policy, and thereby carve a niche for Nigeria in the global drive for democratic sustenance and sustainable development.

Tobi Adewunmi is with the Graduate Programs Unit of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy. tadewunmi@isgpp.com.ng