Illiteracy of most Nigerian voters and erosion of values have been identified as the biggest problems Nigeria’s democratic politics faces.
Newsonline reports that this was the submission of Professor Kingsly Moghalu, a presidential aspirant under the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Professor Moghalu a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said a people who are not educated cannot make informed and empowered choices during political processes.
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He added that illiterate voters do not understand issues of governance, economy and foreign affairs to apply them in electing the leaders during election.
Moghalu said, “the biggest problem in Nigeria’s democratic politics is the pervasive illiteracy. People who are not educated cannot make informed and empowered choices. Heck, they don’t even understand the issues of governance, economy, foreign affairs.
The professor of political economics argued that contrary to popular opinions in Nigeria that vote selling is a result of poverty rate in the country which is been manipulated by the political class, many people who support incompetent and corrupt leaders are not poor.
He said, as for the argument that people will sell their votes because they are poor, I think the problem is more a progressive collapse of values. Many people who support incompetent and corrupt candidates went to school and are not really poor. But they suffer from mental poverty.”
Moghalu recalled that as a former United Nations official he had with his team conducted elections in countries where the voters were predominantly poor, but they failed to sell their votes.
“Besides, as United Nations (UN) official in the 1990s I conducted elections in countries where voters were predominantly poor but they were not selling their votes. So Naija matter is not straightforward. Our minds have been corrupted almost beyond repair,” Moghalu added.
