Former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili has blamed persistent bad governance from the political class as the bane of the country’s economic woes.
Ezekwesili said that the country’s democratic culture that favours the interests of a few people belonging to the ruling class is counterproductive to the struggling masses.
She disclosed this at a virtual conference she convened tagged #TheFixPolitics/Dialogue and focussed on a title, ‘1999 Constitution: To change or amend,’ on Monday.
The ex-Vice President of the World Bank’s Africa Region, while analysing the background of the FixPolitics, a non-governmental organisation she co-founded to address the anomaly of the Nigerian democratic nature, said there is a need to raise a new political class in Nigeria.
Ezekwesili said, “In the course of my studies, I realised there are key ideas between democracy and governance. And in our own case (in Nigeria) the absence of good governance is the greatest obstacle to Nigeria’s economic development.
“The economic development of this country among other things is affected by the monopolistic democracy. The monopolistic democracy is not about the number of political parties present, but the dominant political culture at play.
“There is an urgent need to raise a new order of political class. We have to mobilise people with the awareness of raising the matter of new constitution.”