A presidential candidate in the 2019 election and aspirant in the 2023 poll, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, has identified “pervasive illiteracy” as “the biggest problem in Nigeria’s democratic politics”.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that Moghalu, a former Deputy-Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), also bemoaned the problem of “progressive collapse of values” among citizens.
The biggest problem in Nigeria’s democratic politics is the pervasive illiteracy. People who are not educated cannot make informed and empowered choices. Heck, they don’t even understand the issues of governance, economy, foreign affairs.
— Kingsley Moghalu (@MoghaluKingsley) December 8, 2022
“The biggest problem in Nigeria’s democratic politics is the pervasive illiteracy,” Moghalu wrote on his verified Twitter handle on Thursday.
“People who are not educated cannot make informed and empowered choices. Heck, they don’t even understand the issues of governance, economy, foreign affairs.
“As for the argument that people will sell their votes because they are poor, I think the problem is more a progressive collapse of values. Many people who support incompetent and corrupt candidates went to school and are not really poor. But they suffer from mental poverty.
“Besides, as @UN official in the 1990s I conducted elections in countries where voters were predominantly poor but they were not selling their votes.
“So Naija matter is not straightforward. Our minds have been corrupted almost beyond repair.”
