Former Minister of Education and co-convener of Bring Back
Our Girls Group (BBOG), Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, yesterday challenged Nigerians to
hold government accountable, saying democratic illiteracy in the country was
worrisome.
Ezekwesili said such lack of knowledge was responsible for
the waste of lives, resources, ideas, which at the end stalled unity, peace and
development.
The former vice president of the World Bank made the
statement in a keynote speech at the National Human Rights Conference and Awards organized by the Constitutional Rights Awareness and Liberty Initiative (CRALI)
in Lagos.
She said: “There is heartbreaking democratic illiteracy in
our country. This lack of knowledge of democracy has led to plenty of perishing
of the people. It has led to plenty of perishing of resources; it has led to
plenty of perishing of ideas, of peace, of unity, growth and therefore of
development.
“As economics would tell you, what we suffer from, in that
lack of knowledge is regarded as the challenges of information asymmetry
because certain people have more knowledge of what the constitution says than
the larger majority of the citizens. With that problem of information asymmetry, the power dynamics tilt in the direction of those with the knowledge.”
The former federal minister who said 61 per cent of
Nigerians were in dire poverty charged the citizens to acquaint themselves with
the contents of the constitution and use them as the basis to engage the
government.
Source: Guardian!
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