Democracy should deliver change – Gambari
Former Nigerian Minister for External Affairs, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, said yesterday that democracy has hardly delivered the changes which citizens yearn for.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja, during the memorial lecture of late Prof. AbdulRaufu Mustapha, he said some scholars have argued that the challenges faced by many democracies around the world have been due to the prevalence of form and ritual over substance and innovation.
He said that there have been disaffection with the practice of electoral politics around the world and the evidence was the constant declining of voters turn out. He added that factors responsible for that include youth alienation from electoral politics, continuous marginalisation of women from the political space as well as exclusion of the minorities from effective participation and representation.
Gambari stressed that democracy and development were unfinished business which implied that one aspect of the democracy-development nexus must be pursued together to meet the yearnings of the people.
On the late Raufu Mustapha, Gambari described him as a scholar with many parts and interests, saying that his works on the post-colonial state, the working poor, the politics of emancipation, among other related subjects spoke to his passion about building a more just society founded on principles of equity, inclusion and freedom at all levels.
Also speaking, Dr Fatai Aremu, who represented the Development Research and Project Center (DRPC) said AbdulRaufu was a fellow who fought for the downtrodden as well as the black race.
Legal Adviser of the Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progress Union (IEDPU), Alh. Ahmed Moyosore described the late AbdulRaufu, as a man who touched many lives in his community.
President, CODESRIA Prof. Dzodzi Tsikata and Executive Secretary of CODESRIA, Dr. Godwin Murunga said late AbdulRaufu made critical contributions to the growth of CODESRIA’s.
He noted that AbdulRaufu participated in CODESRIA’s strategic planning workshop that decided on it’s current five-year research agenda.
Head of department, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Christopher Adam said AbdulRaufu was one of the university’s foremost scholars, whose work not only inspired generations of students, but also helped to shape and deepen the understanding of the complexities and the politics of effective state building in Africa, particularly in Nigeria.