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By Okoi Obono-obla
No country is perfect.
No society is perfect.
No human being is perfect.
No system is perfect.
No economic system is perfect, whether it is liberal, communist, capitalist, or socialist.
No political system is perfect, whether it is democratic, liberal, monarchical, dictatorial, totalitarian, or semi-democratic.
On 10 September 2026, President Donald Trump, in a bid to buy voters in the United States of America, said each voter in the USA would be paid $5,000 if the Republican Party wins the next congressional election scheduled for November 2026. He said this when he realized that his political rating is very low and he might lose control of the United States Congress.
Imagine President Bola Ahmed Tinubu offering to pay the equivalent of N7 million to each voter in Nigeria if they vote for the APC.
By now, the usually vociferous netizens would have taken over cyberspace in the country.
Some would scream that democracy is endangered in Nigeria.
They would call President Tinubu a dictator and hurl unimaginable expletives and insults at him.
But the USA is calm, and no such thing has been said.
The USA has practiced democracy for 250 years, while Nigeria is only a 27-year-old democracy.
Yet we now see the institutionalization of corruption and vote-buying in America, which we used to think was anathema in Nigeria.
No technology is perfect.
Even artificial intelligence makes mistakes, commits unpardonable errors, or even lies.
In conclusion, the world is truly imperfect. No nation has a monopoly on good governance and no people have a monopoly on flaws. We must therefore learn with humility, judge others less harshly, and work patiently to improve our own imperfect democracy rather than idealizing any other system.
