Nigeria former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed to everyone that cares know that poverty, ignorance or lack of education are great enemies of democracy.
Obasanjo, disclosed that he lost an election in 1998 because he refused to give bribe to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the police.
The two times president made the shocking revelation on Monday, November 20th, 2023 in Abeokuta, Ogun State where he spoke at a high-level consultation on ‘Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy in Africa’.
He said: “When things go wrong, you said the Nigerian factor. The first thing I learnt in politics was this thing called the Nigerian factor.”
“In 1998, we had the first local government election. We had parties, and here in Abeokuta, we met in my office and they came up and said, ‘look, this is money for INEC, money for police.’ At a stage I said, ‘what nonsense! Is the police not being paid, and INEC too?’”
“They said ‘that’s how we do it. I said ‘you cannot do that.’ So, they didn’t do that. And of course, we lost all the local governments. We lost all. And then they came to me and said, ‘Baba, you see? If you had allowed us to do it the way we used to do it, we would have won’. And I felt guilty.”
“During the next election, which was the State Assembly, I just stayed in my house. I said ‘well, do whatever you want to do, I will not be part of it’.”
“So, I didn’t even go. But, the result was the same. One of the people who got money didn’t even distribute it to where he was supposed to distribute it.”
“When you are hungry, whatever anybody tells you cannot go in. Poverty is a great enemy of democracy. Ignorance or lack of education is a great enemy of democracy. And we seem to be deliberately fomenting poverty and lack of education.”
