23 Years After: Democracy At Crossroads 

It was exactly 29 years yesterday when a most memorable presidential election was held and its result was criminally nullified by a ravenous cabal. The desire of the Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha regimes to invalidate the election also had a particularly sinister dehumanising and macabre political logic, in addition to its endemic barbaric proportion. But, the emerging nationwide battle for emancipation gave an incredibly defective Constitution, which returned the country to civil rule on May 29, 1999, and returned the military to the barracks.
The persistent clamour and devotion of Nigerians to the principles of June 12 climaxed in the recognition of the day as the annual Democracy Day by President Muhammadu Buhari. It is also to observe that remarkable polling day in 1993 when Nigerians, across ethnic, religious and demographic fault lines, endowed their hopes in freedom in Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the presumed winner of the election, and the supreme sacrifice he paid in his quest to redeem his mandate.
Unfortunately, nearly 30 years after, rather than sweeping revelries, pessimism still pervades throughout the country as Nigerians encounter the painful truth that the democratic vow of freedom and the pursuit of contentment have been envenomed terribly by purblind leadership, a debased Constitution and an obsequious citizenry. Instead of the inauguration of democracy, the people paid dearly for the baneful mix that has simply conveyed a civil rule with all its concomitant drawbacks.
Thus, the citizens are learning the hard way that deepening democracy and its tremendous ability to emit the imaginative and creative powers of the people goes beyond outward showing of intermittent elections, presence of legislature and other chaotic emblems of government. Democracy has become a mere covering for a few to hijack power and public treasury when these isomorphic institutions fail to achieve the real democratic objectives of personal, political and economic liberty and the pursuit of the greatest good for the most significant number.

More than 20 years of civil rule, it is sad that most Nigerians are not in any way better. Corruption still characterises governance, intensifying poverty and inequality, economic loss and inefficiency, public and private sector dysfunction, failures in infrastructure, rigged economic and political systems, impunity and injustice, organised crime, terrorism and diminished state capacity.
As corruption, in particular, state capture becomes the new normal, public disgruntlement and misanthropy permeate the land. The essential components of democracy — rule of law, social justice, citizens’ participation, responsible political parties, active free press, independent parliament and judiciary — in scanty existence are likewise under ferocious assault.
Significant progress can be assessed by an examination of how far the country has gone in accomplishing these key facets of democracy. For the past 29 years, it has been hard to exacerbate these fundamental values because the executive arm is viciously irresponsible, the legislature pathetically vulnerable, and the judiciary precariously negotiated. The three, of course, share a common DNA — corruption. Dictators or at best deprecating despots have been romping themselves as democrats with their common enemy being freedom of speech.
Democracy faces obsolescence when the citizens are laid-back and freedom is menaced when the media is muffled. Perceiving something that the government claims is satisfactory and pointing out why it is atrocious is a major idiosyncrasy of democracy and a constitutive function of the press. Indeed, it is one of democracy’s most imperative safeguards. The undiscerning Buhari’s regime has been trying to browbeat the media into tractability. The administration plans to criminalise “hate speech,” under a law that may necessitate mass scrutiny and proximate tracking of social media.
Yet, it is generally acknowledged in free societies that what counts as odious is subjective, so “hate speech” laws can be malleable tools for criminalising dissension. Notwithstanding the country’s dynamic press, it ranked an impoverished 115 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index 2020, where Ghana was 30th, South Africa 31st and Burkina Faso 38th. In defiance of the Constitution and court judgements, the government illegally detains people. Recent cases in Kaduna, Katsina, Cross River and Akwa Ibom States for the non-existent offence of “insulting the President” or a state governor illustrate the people’s gloom.
The constitutionally overly planned separation of powers among the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary that are recognised as a major pillar of representative rule is unstable. At the National Assembly, it has been a contour of legislators permanently seeking group and personal ennoblement; many governors have reduced State Assembly to contemptible subordination, thereby making short attrition of the fragile system of checks and balances. The dysfunction is made complete by the debilitating of the judiciary through corruption and coercion by insubordination to court orders.
Getting elections right and having people of candour to seek public office are necessary precedence for good governance. The differentiating factor of a democracy are the legislators, who are the concierge of the people’s yearnings and authority. But far from being champions of the people’s privileges and advocates of the safety and welfare of the citizens, the federal and state lawmakers are seen as pathetically selfish persons who are mainly involved with accumulating wealth. The captious task of making good laws, exercising oversight over the executive and keeping an eagle eye on public funds have gravely convulsed.
Nigerians must maintain democratic values through active participation. They have been missing in action, largely leaving the space for politicians to define, direct and corner the extras of civil rule. Inclusion and liberty are never achieved on a platter; they could be a long-drawn affair. The people need to constantly wield pressure to secure the ideals. French democracy has its catchwords of “liberty, equality and fraternity,” but citizens reserve their right to pour into the streets to affirm their discretion, irrespective of representative state institutions. Nigerians too need to recoup their vigour and passion in holding public officers accountable.
To halt the trend, civil society groups should re-strategise and re-energise. Labour and student unions need to chuck their unhealthy snug with the corrupt political class and rediscover their activist and progressive tradition. Professionals and academics should re-acquire the spirit of national service and work for the uplifting of the country. Common people as well should shake off complacency and rise above arm-twisting.
The time to act is now. This dismal circumstances demand determined pressure by the people to possess democracy and become masters of their destiny. Nigerians must make democracy work for them, or remain eternally miserable and disheartened. Political restructuring and electoral reforms are imperative. The first will allow for robust federalism while the other will ensure that elections reverberate the free expression of the will of the people.
It is left for the youths to uphold and crystallize what has been accomplished and heighten the democratic culture, values and good governance, without which democracy loses its lifeblood. The media should remain steadfast in its role as a defence against dictatorship and a watchdog to conserve public interest. But, perpetually, the June 12 resolve remains a dominant denotation of national democratic aspirations and a mobilisation point for real assimilation.