Análisis de los Estados Financieros

You should be aware that some of the major strategies that have been used to sideline the Nigerian people have been the tendency for officials to busy themselves in statistics derived often from the World Bank and other international organisations. While these statistics have been useful in pointing out which groups have been most severely affected in terms of the prolonged economic crisis, they have been used most often for propaganda at international level rather than for concrete remedial action at home.

For example, if it has been known over the past decade that Nigerian workers have earned less than a living wage, the same politicians who do not hesitate to appropriate huge sums of tax payers resources for their own foreign and local travels have been most unwilling to pay their workers a living wage.

This appears to be part of the whole strategy of disempowerment, in so far as workers who spend most of their unpaid wages can hardly be mobilised for effective political action to redress their disempowerment.

In the same way, rather than accept a redistribution of economic power to the States and the local government the central authorities in the Nigerian capital, Abuja have maintained a strong hold on the country's resources thereby making it difficult for these levels of government that are really close to the people to initiate and implement meaningful programmes for the welfare and economic empowerment of the people.

Yet a well-respected Nigerian social scientist has argued that the systems of governance that should attract the searchlight and efforts of Nigerians in the twenty- first century should be based on these fundamental principles:

"first and foremost, governance... must be predicated on the proposition that people do matter. Consequently, politics and economics in any society must be built around the people and there must be priority of the human over the economic and the political." [Adedeji, 2000:2]

It is obvious that such a strategic people centred vision of governance will carry a number of very significant consequences, in terms of both the objectives to be pursued by government at all levels, as well as the methodologies adopted in achieving those objective principles put

forward by Professor Adedeji. To sustain a people centred system of local governance in Nigeria, we can highlight the principle of popular participation, which is both the means and the end of empowerment for excluded and marginalised groups, according to him:

“For democracy to survive, grow and thrive in a society, it must derive from and be inspired by a deeply rooted culture by a particular participation. In essence, the empowerment of the people to involve themselves in designing policies and programmes that all can contribute optionally to the development process”. [Adedeji 2000 p.

3].

Now you cannot imagine what positive effects the widespread practice of popular participation will have on both the people and the process of development itself. For one sure reason the design and implementation of many white elephant projects which are conceived mostly as a means of awarding contracts. In the place of huge foreign debts incurred ostensibly to execute the white elephant projects, small scale projects executed through popular participation are likely to leave the country with a reduced external debt burden.

Finally, through popular participation, those sections of the people who are usually excluded will become active participants in the development process. However, we must recognise that popular participation will be easier to realise in the respect of local development issues than over national political issues such as constitutional review, because of difficulties arising from communication problems. But even in these areas, a creative approach will remove the obstacles to popular participation.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you have seen that even though the broad masses of the Nigerian people were instrumental to the success of the nationalist in acquiring independence from the colonial power, they have generally been marginalized and alienated from the country's political and development process.

This alienation of a large section of the Nigerian people, up to 50%, according to some estimates, has been the main obstacle to national democratic governance. Overcoming this deficit requires designing a new system of governance at all levels that will not only focus on the people and their needs, but will empower the people to contribute to the development of their communities through popular participation.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have seen that democracy and good governance even if they could be considered intrinsic values in themselves are mainly instrumental.

Consequently, they only have meaning and significance when they really serve the needs of the people. In a country such as Nigeria, with a huge population of over 120 million people, the essence of democracy and good governance can only be seen in the extent to which the people are really at the focus of the political and economic processes of society.

However as a result of the country's historical evolution and the severe crises that the country has endured in the past two decades, large sections of the Nigerian community have become effectively marginalized from the country's political processes. Among these are women, peasants, workers, artisans, craftsmen traders and market women.

A people focused system of democracy will have the privacy of the human resources of the country as its base and through a system of popular participation, the benefits of such a people focused system will include a reduction in the number of failed white elephant projects in the country, the reduction in the cost of project implementation, as well as a greater capacity to meet the actual needs of the people. Above all, through such popular participation, the people will be able to empower themselves to resist their exploitation by Local State and Federal officials, who have often used the design and implementation of poverty reduction and people empowerment programmes to enrich themselves.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Identify three essential features of a people-centered concept of democracy.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Adedeji, A. [2000] Renewal of the search for systems of local Governance that can serve the common Good" in Adedeji, A. and Ayo, B. [eds], people–centered Democracy in Nigeria? The search for Alternative systems of Governance at the grace roots, Ibadan, Heinemann educational Books, Nigeria plc.

Imoagene, O. [1989], The Nigerian class Structure, Ibadan, Evans brothers, Nig. Ltd.

Federal republic of Nigeria, [2001] Report of the Presidential Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution [PCRC], Volume 1, main report.

Federal Republic of Nigeria Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. 1999, Lagos, Federal Government Press.

Nnoli, O. [1989] Nigerians foreign policy and the struggle for economic Independence" in Akinyemi, et. al. (eds) Nigeria since independence: The First 25. Years, Volume X international Relations, Ibadan, Heinemann Educational Books, Nigeria Ltd.

UNIT 2 DECENTRALISATION OF ECONOMIC AND