In most countries in Africa, democracy ends with elections. This is either a deliberate misreading of democracy a convenient misapplication of the concept by our leaders. Either way, our leader must be told that democracy transcends elections. What is democracy? For the purpose of elucidation, I will like to repeat one of the definitions I “neologised in one of my previous articles.
Democracy is a government for all. The rich, the poor, the weak and the strong, all make the system tick. The system gives the people the freedom to participate and choose those that will govern them. It also gives them the liberty to associate freely and talk freely against and about their leaders. In a democracy, there should be justice for all citizens regardless of social status, economic power or political leverage. These are the theoretical foundations of democracy. They are the sacrosanct elements of democracy and the bedrock of participatory governance.
It stands to reason therefore that if democracy is synonymous with participatory governance, the people and their leaders must evolve mechanisms for interactive cordiality. When leaders initiate such mechanisms, it is an opportunity for people to speak to power in a manner that will give strength to their expectations. While it is true that citizens read about their leaders and their activities in the media, there is nothing that is more exciting and fulfilling to the citizens than the physical romance they have with their leaders at public functions.
However, because of the overzealousness of security aides, who in the name of protection, form a circumference of angels around leaders, it becomes somehow difficult to interact with such leaders satisfactorily. The best the people get from their leaders at public functions is a wave of the hands which come with political smiles, infected with cobweb ambivalence.
To overcome this inhibition, some political leaders have designed a town hall model after America’s Town Hall Series. The town hall interactive sessions enable the leaders to present their performance reports to their constituents for them to know how well their representatives have been able to address all issues raised during campaigns. The town hall interactions allow both the leaders and the citizens to compare notes on the campaign promises and find a way to accommodate new challenges. The town hall series makes it possible for both sides (leaders and citizens) to reach a consensus on areas of disagreement and to discuss national issues which cropped up after elections. When a leader makes himself available to the people, he people develop some kind of affection for him and see him as a responsible and responsive humble leader who carries is people along in every in everything that affects them. This kind of interaction is very important in any democratic society that desires peaceful co-existence between leaders and followers.
Town Hall series affords the citizens opportunity to see, feel and touch their leaders. But more importantly, for the citizens to know that their leaders are not derailing from the development agenda outlined in the party manifesto.
Town Hall “democracy” therefore means exchange of ideas, banters, performance reports, handouts and pleasantries between elected officials and their constituents in an atmosphere of cordial sodality. It is the forum through which both the leaders and the followers discuss issues of mutual benefit and their constituents in an atmosphere of cordial sodality. It is the forum through which bot the leader and the followers discuss issues of mutual benefit and the medium through which democracy dividends are crystalized. It is an institutional platform through which citizens debrief their leaders as a way of knowing their position on some sensitive national issues that may ultimately affect their lives and their communities.
Sometime last month, I was Watching Paul Ryan, the Speaker of US House of Representatives, during the Town Series anchored Jake Tapper, and I marveled at the beauty of democracy because both the leader and his constituents had an exciting and stimulating session. The intelligent an articulate Ryan, known for his extreme partisanship especially on issues bothering on the GOP, was at his best defending some of President Trump’s policies and actions and condemning the obvious and irrational ones like the Charlotsville comments.
In Nigeria, this is not common. I have only observed one elected official who has been doing this consistently since he came to office. It is the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode. As recent as August 2, this year, the Governor, despite the toll of Lagos@50 on him and his officials and the resources of the state, still considered it imperative to hold the Town Hall Meeting at the Badore Ferry Terminal, Lagos. The one before this was held in May. This particular one was 8th in the series.
The hallmark of the Ambode administration is its steadfastness in prosecuting and executing its policies and programmes; a unique quality which gives him the strategic direction in articulating and implementing the programs of his administration without any form of distraction and derailment. The Governor takes governance as a mantra or a covenant between him and the people who voted him into office and behaves as if any breach of the covenant is a mortal betrayal of the people. This explains why he is not afraid to face the people in the Town Hall Meeting knowing that he has not fallen short of the expectations of the people. Leadership is about confidence. Confidence is about performance. Performance is about diligence. Diligence is about hardwork. Hardwork is about commitment. Commitment is about passion. Passion is about zeal. Zeal is about service. Service is about progress. Progress is about development. Development is about people. People is about the collective. The collective is about the democracy. Democracy is about good governance. Good governances is about participation. Participation is about inclusion. Inclusion is about idea. Idea is about government. Government is about everything.
When a leader, in this case Governor Ambode, encapsulate; all these qualitative characteristics, it shows that the government he leads is politically and conceptually structured to withstand the intrigues and complexities of political competitions and social dystopia.
The governor has adopted the Town Hall Meeting series as the framework through which his government articulates its programmes, policies, projects and then goes ahead to evaluate its performance from policy conception to project execution. It is interesting to note that right from the first Town Hall Meeting August 2015 to the one of August 2017, government has measurement indices to capture the progress of every policy and project that it has embarked upon. In the health sector for instance, the government on assumption of office employed 32 Resident Doctors, 21 House Officers, 30 Intems and 105 Staff of various categories. It was also in this first quarter 2015 that LASUTH produced first female Oncologist in Nigeria. In the second quarter, the Governor also granted approval for the recruitment of 120 staff (15 Doctors, 46 Nurses, 59 Clinical staff). There was no recruitment of medical personnel in the 3rd quarter. There was also no medical recruitment in the fourth Quarter of last year, April to June. Apart from the fact that the department of Paediatrics, LASUTH was awarded full accreditation, there was nothing onmedical recruitment. But in the 6th Quarter of the administration, undeclared numbers of health workers – Medical Consultants, Medical Officers, Pharmacists, Nurses and Non-Clinical Staff were employed by the government.
In the 1st Quarter of this year which was the 7th of the Town Hall Meeting series, there was no recruitment but the Governor was happy to inform the people of Lagos State that the Dental School, LASU and the Orthopedic Department were both given full accreditation by the approving authorities. Though, there was no recruitment in the second quarter of this year, the Governor informed the people who thronged the Town Hall Meeting, the 8th in the series, that the state government conducted successful investigation of a corpse with suspected Ebola Virus disease and also conducted an open heart surgery on a 22-year old female patient by a team of indigenous surgeons.
It is incontrovertible that when a government designs mechanisms for self-assessment and general evaluation of its performance, it is simply defining a methodology for scientific governance is scientifically and conceptually enabled, it becomes difficult to lose focus and direction because such a government is immune to cynical acerbity and political artifice.
In a society like ours where there is penchant and tendency for intense acrimonies among political parties, a government only become solid so to say, if it can surmount and survive the arrows and hurricanes of rational and irrational and competitions. It is therefore astonishing that in Lagos State, there is a collective attestation by all and sundry: the kind of attestation that tell the government to ride on and continue with its good works because there is nothing substantial to criticize or to condemn. As an indigene of the state as a journalist who has covered Lagos politics for many years, from Jakande to Akinwunmi Ambode, as a public analyst who has dissected Lagos politics with dispassionate clinicality, I am amazed that there is an alien bonding between the ruling party and the opposition to the effect that everybody seems to applaud the Ambode government for its superlative performance so far. This positive cooperation and dialectical fraternity is nothing but a testament to good governance in Lagos State, good governance that has its roots in participatory democracy as manifested in the establishment of what I have termed “Town Hall Democracy.”