Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi and his Kaduna State counterpart, Nasiru El-Rufai, have said development remains the driving force for sustainable democracy.
They spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the launch of a book, titled: Nigeria Democracy Without Development: How To Fix It, authored by Dr. Omano Edigheji, a Special Adviser to the Kaduna State Governor on Research and Documentation.
Dr. Fayemi said it would be impossible to have democracy without first having development.
He identified poverty and lack of consensus as forces against the government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Represented by Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi, the Ekiti governor said: “I think, in my view, development will deliver democracy, and not the other way round. This is because in an environment where you have poverty, lack of consensus, vision for the people and nation, it is difficult to rarely talk about democracy.
“Without development, it is difficult to sustain democracy because democracy presupposes that people are interested in enforcing freedom and participation in governance through contribution of representation. But how do you do this while majority of the people cannot put food on their table?”
Fayemi urged the Federal Government to invest more time towards solving the nation’s developmental deficit.
“That is why I believe that any government, including the current government, needs to invest more time, more thinking, and will bring all hands on deck, so that we can solve the problem of developmental deficits,” he added.
El-Rufai noted that it was a paradox to have democracy without significant progress.
He said: “I think it is a book that tries to explain a paradox on how you could have democracy but without significant progress.
“Most of the countries that we have seen register significant progress, moving from low income to middle income in the last 50 years, are states that have practised this. What Dr. Omano has done is to articulate this argument for development to drive democracy and everything else in a compact written in this book.”
Kaduna Central Senator Uba Sani argued that despite the challenges of transparency and accountability, the country has made some progress.
Dr. Edigheji, a scholar, pro-democracy activist and humanist, recommended the adoption of the developmental state model, which has been applied by East Asian countries to transform their economies from largely agrarian subsistence to achieve high levels of industrial development.
Dr. Innocent Chukwuma of the Ford Foundation decried the role of “godfatherism” in Nigerian politics.

By Vincent Ikuomola