A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, has lamented the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few in Nigeria.

While revealing that less than 10 per cent of the population controls the nation’s resources, he said this glaring inequality reflects the failure of Nigeria’s democratic system to deliver economic justice to the majority, who he said continue to live in poverty despite participating in electoral processes.

Ibeanu raised the concern at a memorial forum in honour of the late pan-African intellectuals and radical activists, Tajudeen Abdulraheem and Abubakar Momoh, organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in Abuja.

Delivering the keynote address on the theme “Reclaiming Democracy for Authentic African Development: Remembering Tajudeen Abdulraheem and Abubakar Momoh,” the political science professor from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, described elections in Nigeria as rituals without substance designed to sustain elite dominance.

Ibeanu argued that the system has been rigged ideologically and structurally to ensure that electoral democracy is reduced to a hollow exercise every four years, while the socio-economic conditions of the majority worsen.

The people, he noted, are alienated from real political power, adding that elections have become rituals in which “people drop a piece of paper in a box for candidates they do not know, who are often unfit for office, but selected by parties with no real accountability.”

He pointed to the 2023 general elections as a clear example of the disconnect between democratic performance and socio-economic reality.

His words: “When Nigeria went to the polls in 2023, in fact, on the day the presidential election took place, the number of Nigerians living in poverty was about 100 million, and that was about the size of the voter’s register in Nigeria.

“At the same time, over 20 million Nigerian children were out of school, the highest in the world. But at the same time, Nigeria was ranked about 63rd on the World Development Index. But that is not the problem.

“The problem is that if you then look at the relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and our position in terms of this development index among the least developed countries, Nigeria is second to the last. It was only ahead of the tiny country called Djibouti. So the problem of Nigeria is not poverty as such. It is about wealth distribution.

“Because on the same day we were voting for a new president, the richest man in Africa was a Nigerian. About 10 per cent or less than 10 per cent of Nigerians controlled 90 per cent of the country’s wealth.

“So the problem of Nigeria is not poverty, and I’m using this as an instance. So we were voting for a new set of people in what we call democracy, but at the other extreme, poverty was ravaging right in the midst of wealth. And these are the kinds of questions that Tajudeen and Momoh would have posed.

In his remarks, Director of CDD, Dr. Garuba Dauda, said Africa’s post-independence journey has been shaped by a dream that envisioned an alternative path to Western liberal democracy.

He recalled that at the time of independence, thinkers across the continent, including in Nigeria, argued against copying Western systems wholesale and advocated for a democracy rooted in Africa’s unique context and values.

According to him, Africa has yet to establish a democratic model that delivers development, noting that while even the architects of liberal democracy are currently facing their own internal crises, Africa remains stuck in a political model that fails to match its development aspirations.

At the event, families, friends, and well-wishers of the late scholars, Tajudeen Abdulraheem and Abubakar Momoh, paid glowing tributes to their legacies.

They described both men as fearless intellectuals and committed pan-Africanists who devoted their lives to the struggle for social justice, people-centred democracy, and the liberation of the African continent. (The Guardian)