ABUJA (Sundiata Post) Some of us are ignorant of the civic duties of a citizen. Paying taxes, obeying the law and voting at elections are all civic duties, but they are not sufficient for progress. You pay your taxes monthly, which your governor spends on air flights while your town lacks tap-water. Was that his campaign promise? Don’t you feel cheated?
That governors before him also denied you water is not an excuse. All it takes government to provide water are a water reservoir, a treatment plant, a network of pipes and competent staff. If your governor can’t achieve that, it is your duty to complain and criticize his government till water flows in your tap. If he still fails, you vote him out at the next election. That is called accountability, a basic principle of democracy.
Lack of clean water subjects citizens to hardship and deadly diseases such as polio and cholera. In advanced democracies, a cholera epidemic is sufficient scandal to get a governor impeached for incompetence. While that won’t happen here soon, you can have your chance at the ballot box. Alas, it is you hailing the governor and attacking all valid criticisms of his bad governance.
Either you don’t know democracy or you are just defending a personal interest at the expense of society. Elected leaders – from councilor to president – have contracts with voters to govern them well. Minor infractions may be ignored, but not major failures causing deaths, such as insecurity and cholera epidemics. Holding politicians to account for such major failures is the civic duty of citizens.
If you disagree, you may emigrate to live under dictators in North Korea and the Middle East. But in democratic Nigeria, citizens will demand good governance and criticize leadership failures causing hardship and loss of lives. And if leaders remain aloof, citizens will vote them out of office. That is how democracy works, in case you don’t know.
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