faulker002

By   Hope Eghagha The theory and principle of democracy effectively removed the power of elevating officials into the ruling class from the hands of potentates and transferred same to the people. In practice there had always been interference from strong economic and political forces in the democratic process. These seek to undermine or influence and manipulate the electoral process to favour a point of view, an ideology, a selfish interest or some candidates. This has happened in all democracies; it is indeed a human trait. What has differed is the degree and for what ends. As a result, democracy or the principle of it has not always had its way. The checks and balances are in the hands of men; not angels or saints! It is this crack; the crack of human element and weaknesses that often times transfers the final pronouncement from the hands of the people to a select few.    Historically, monarchs and kings determined the fate of peoples. In most cases the word of the king...

By   Hope Eghagha    Early in 2018 when Mallam Atiku Abubakar began to reference restructuring the nation’s polity as one of his cardinal goals, I thought I should take him seriously. As a man from the Niger Delta whose region has been fundamentally shortchanged by the current quasi-federal arrangement I naturally took interest in this core northern leader who had decided to make restructuring a campaign issue.  *Atiku Abubakar  Middle of last year I tried through some of his aides to reach him. No luck. He was either too busy or the aides I reached did not have the clout to arrange a meeting. So I let it rest. Once Atiku Abubakar secured the PDP’s nomination as presidential candidate I thought I should use this medium to broach some of the issues I would have presented to him. Let me state from the outset that we do not need a prophet to tell us that President Muhammadu Buhari is not interested in the restructuring matter. This is clear from the way he handled ...