A civil society organisation, Yiaga Africa, has called for holistic legal and institutional reforms to strengthen Nigeria’s democratic process.
Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, made this call during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.
Itodo said that the country’s democracy needed a number of reforms, including the attitudes of both the leaders and the citizens.
He also stressed the need for legal and institutional reforms for the county to make progress.
“The kind of political class we have in Nigeria is a mixed bag; some are ready to deliver services and some are out to secure power at all costs for personal gains and not to advance the common good.
“But with some kind of reforms, the right people will be put in place,” he said.
The executive director also blamed the series of defections by some political office holders from one political party to the other on poor orientation and lack of ideology.
He called on the electorate to change their attitude toward elections, even as he urged citizens to hold their leaders to account.
“Citizens should not go to sleep after elections, thinking that those they elected are benevolent enough to take decisions that will advance their interests.
“Nigerians really need to do more for the love of our country to solve the problems that are bedeviling our nation.
“We need to change our attitude; our attitude toward paying taxes, attitude toward respecting traffic rules and our attitude toward our fellow Nigerians.
“Those days, if a fellow Nigerian was in distress, the whole community would rally round him but today, we have become so disjointed and we are only for individual interests.
“If the police are intimidating a fellow citizen or if an institution is infringing on the right of a fellow citizen, we should all rise up to support the person, just like the way some Nigerians reacted in the case of the corps member in a viral video few weeks ago.
