By Anietie Akpan
For any meaningful change to take place in Nigeria, Political Scientists have called for the need to make political offices less attractive financially.
In a Communique signed by the Chairman, Dr. Sunday Ibanga and Secretary, Dr. Benson Udom of the Nigerian Political Science Association –South -South Zone,at the end of a 3 day conference held at ASUU Secretariat University of Calabar, on March 9-12, the Political Scientists said this can be done by “reviewing relevant extant laws”.
The conference with the theme : “Interrogating Politics, Governance and Crisis of Devleopment”, observed that, “Nigeria suffers from governance deficit and lack of purposeful leadership” as the interactions noted that, “the leadership in Nigeria is a self- seeking”.
Given the above, they said, “the resources for development is often misappropriated.
“The result is development crisis that has affected socio-economic and political development with attendant consequences on national and human security”.
In this regards, they said government should strengthen the existing structures that could enable Leadership accountability.
They also identified that political parties and party politics are the major problems of democracy in Nigeria.
Hence , the Political Scientists stated that, “laws regulating political parties and the election management body must be reviewed by relevant regulating bodies to create conditions for service-driven party and election management system in Nigeria”.
Nigeria’s federalism is lacking in separation of powers, they said adding that, “the National Assembly and other relevant entities should review and ensure the full implementation of fiscal federalism in Nigeria”.
The Political Scientists also observed that there is no institutional framework for the country’s community policing architecture and therefore recommended that, “the National Assembly must create enabling institutional framework for the formal operation of community policing in Nigeria”.
Politics according to the scientists, inevitably involves power contestation, power relations, governance and distribution of resources in the nation.
Political Science and its association therefore, need to be more relevant to the Nigerian society by moving from the theoretical realm to practical tool of system transformation, they stated.
As observed by David Easton, in the credo of relevance, the Political Scientist should be involved in the political system by engaging in politics enable them have a place in governance as a means of implementing their thoughts on how to move the country from where it is to where it ought to be.
The essence of the conference was to interrogate the important and indispensable nexus between politics, governance and crisis of development of our country, Nigeria as “this is in recognition of our patriotic zeal committed to finding practical solutions to the challenge of governance and development in the midst of resources”.
