The Senior Economic Adviser, Africa EconomicDevelopment Policy Initiative, Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili has said that the only way to fix Nigeria’s politics is to build an empowered and engaged electorate, a new class of politicians that are capable competent and ethical and to drive a very strong citizen’s led constitutional change and reform of the political and electoral order in the country.

The former Education Minister Stated this at the presentation of her findings from her fellowship research on how to fix politics in Nigeria and Africa which was the  public launch of #FIXPOLITICS, a webinar that took place on 11 November, 2020.

FIXPOLITICS is a citizen-led movement to structurally change and innovate politics in Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world.

Ezekwesili’s idea is based on the findings derived from her research work at the Robert Bosch Academy as a Richard von Weizacker Fellow in 2019/2020.

She said her study was prompted by the failure of the leaders to value its citizen and to produce good outcome for them.

In her bid to remedy this, she developed three critical triangular pillars of democracy that determines the quality of politics and its outcome.

According to her, it is an interconnected network of actions at every angle of the triangle acting together to produce a certain outcome whether good or bad.

Describing the angle she said, “At the base of the triangle left hand side you have the demand side of governance which comprise of the electorate.

“At the other end of the base of the triangle we have the supply side of the governance which comprises of the political class that is the politicians and the alternative ideas they have for supplying governance to the demand side.

“At the apex of the triangle you have the regulatory context in the case of Nigeria for example would be constitution, legislations that are importance for politics especially electoral law and the role of the judiciary and of security establishments.”

According to her, using the context, one can evaluate each country’s politics and determine in a qualitative and quantitative way what kind of outcome it would produce.

Evaluating the politics of Nigeria using the context, Ezekwesili said, “The electorate in Nigeria is without influence to determine good political outcome in the political process.

“In the other end of the triangle you’ve got poor quality of political class without competing idea and without a culture of service.

“At the apex you have institution that regulates without competence, without fairness and without adherence to the rule of law and therefore lacks independence of action.”

According to her, the space of political activities is completely monopolized by the supply side (politicians) thereby distorting the kind of result that can be accomplished by the government which in turn leads to poor economic performance.

However, to change the status quo using the analysis, Ezekwesili suggests that the electorate is the only angle that can affect the change necessary for correcting the system that is broken.

According to her, In doing so is to build an empowered and engaged electorate, a new class of politicians that are capable competent and ethical and to drive a very strong citizen’s led constitutional change and reform of the political and electoral order in the country.

She added that,” this three actions are the things that FIXPOLITICS has set out to do, the truth is without embarking on such a systemic approach to change , it would be impossible for us to create a nation that the generation unborn would be proud of.

“That is why anyone of you that cares about the future, even the present would have to join us to fixpolitics.”