Renowned economist and former Nigerian Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has sounded a clarion call on the state of democracy in the country amidst deepening economic woes, emphasizing that declining economic conditions risk eroding citizen trust and participation in democratic processes.
Ezekwesili who wrote on her X page, formerlly twitter, highlighted the critical link between economic growth and poverty reduction as fundamental to sustaining democratic resilience.
The tweet read, “Democracy that is steadily dropping more and more citizens into Poverty needs serious rescue from its breaking point.
“Citizens are the basis of Democratic Resilience and we need them to feel they have a stake in our Democracy to protect it.
“Don’t these folks get it?”
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Also, in the video that accompanied the tweet, Ezekwesili underscored the alarming trend where economic growth has stagnated below 3 percent, failing to match the country’s population growth rate of about 3 percent, consequently plunging more citizens into poverty.
“When you think in terms of economic growth which is the driver of reduction in poverty you find that a good governance is still a dream. The reason being that in the last almost five years, I think it is four years. 2014 was when our growth sharply dropped, so what we have done is that we have been at the lowest region of economic growth in recent times.
“At a growth in the economy of less than 3 percent while population growth is about 3 percent we are not growing atall, we are dropping more citizens into poverty, that is not the correct thing to do inorder to build a lasting system of credible democracy.
“Ultimately when the quality of life is not improved amongst the generality of your citizens they will tend to ask you someday democracy for who, and they will ask you democracy for what?” She stated.
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