National Chairman of Action Democratic Party, Alhaji Sani Yagbagi, said aside the opportunity of freedom of choice and end to military rule, Nigeria´s democratic experience had been turbulent.
He stated this while appraising democracy since its inception in Nigeria in 1999 and the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government three years in office in an interview with newsmen on Monday in Abuja.
Yagbagi said that President Muhammadu Buhari administration had not done quite well, especially in management of the country’s economy.
He said: “If you look at the value of naira which is the determinant of productivity in every economy, it has gone down, and by the day, it is going down.
“So, democracy has not really brought much to the people in terms of economy; I am talking in terms of deliverables and the economic impacts on the people.”
He added that even with the freedom of choice, election processes in the country were in most cases hijacked through rigging which made it near impossible for people’s choice to emerge at elections.
Yabagi said: “Often, you don’t find the wishes of the people expressed or allowed to take routes; what happens is different from what people want.”
Yagbagi pointed out that the present administration delayed in “hitting the ground running’’ when it came into power in 2015.
He said: “Three years on, they are still making appointments – key political, economic positions, statutory bodies that are supposed to really guide, manage and advise on how the economy should be run.”
On his part, Labour Party National Chairman, Alhaji Abdulsalam Abdulkadir, said alleged that the country had, in the last three years, witnessed some level of human rights violation and disrespect to the rule of law.
He also decried what he described as “growing poverty level and suffering in the country” within the period.
Abdulkadir said the country was still a consumer nation with not much local products to export.
He, therefore, urged the government to put in place measures to remedy the situation ahead of 2019.