Nigerian politicians as enemies of democracy
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
I am worried that Nigerian leaders have captured the Nigerian state, taking beleaguered citizens hostage in the process and yet carrying on as if all is well. I am even more worried that the grossly abused citizens, afflicted with the debilitating Stockholm syndrome, rather than standing up to their abusers are actually coping, having over time developed positive feelings toward those who have persistently treated them cruelly, violently and unfairly in the name of leadership. But I am most worried that with the way Nigerian leaders are misbehaving, sooner or later something will give and we will all be worse for it.
Nigerian leaders love clichés. So, most often, they mouth former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s quip: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” with neither comprehension nor sincerity and harangue everyone with the “democracy is the best form of government” platitude even when they wilfully rubbish the very idea.
The word democracy, which comes from the Greek words demos (people) and kratos (power) as a governance paradigm may well be the best form of government but that is predicated on the condition that the people freely choose their leaders on the wings of the inalienable freedoms it guarantees. In other words, democracy is a value-driven governance model that celebrates the three totems of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic, genuine elections by universal suffrage.
Holding free and fair elections periodically is the leverage the electorate have in a democracy. The idea is that if elected officials do not perform, the people in whom the sovereign powers of the state reside, will not re-elect them.
It is in this context that the definition of democracy by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the U.S. in his November 19, 1863 address at the Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania, remains immortal.
In the 271-word Gettysburg address widely considered one of the most notable in American history, Lincoln said: “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Five years earlier – three years before he became President in 1861 – Lincoln on August 1, 1858 also drew a fundamental parallel between democracy and freedom using the anecdotal scourge of slavery. “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy,” he said.
So, democracy without the fundamental freedoms it guarantees the people, particularly the freedom of choice is an aberration. Therefore, any system of government in which the supreme power is not vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system, can be anything but democratic.
If these are incontestable truisms, why then are Nigerian politicians behaving in a manner that suggests that the people don’t matter? Who will tell them that by so doing they are endangering democracy?
How is it that those who insist that the worst democratic government is better than the most benevolent military junta and who aver that the antidote to bad governance is a change through the electoral process work assiduously to ensure votes do not count in elections?
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So, which democratic process are they talking about? While it may be true that democracy is the best form of government, the question needs to be asked whether a system where the sovereign powers do not reside in the people who in turn use same during periodic elections to determine those that should make the authoritative allocation of their collective values, qualify to be called a democracy.
Can we equate civilian rule with democracy? No!
Granted, there is a school of thought which believes democracy is an illusion and those who subscribe to such fallacy quickly point to the Donald Trump aberration in the U.S. as evidence. But the truth remains that while Trump has given democracy a bad name with his undemocratic escapades just like Nigerian leaders, some countries are thriving democracies because the people exercise their inalienable right of determining who governs them in free and fair elections.
So, why is democracy not working for Nigeria? Where lies the problem – democracy itself or the fact that the overlords decided to go rogue?
To be clear, democracy is a beautiful concept without blemishes but a lot is wrong with Nigeria’s democracy because of the overt conspiracy among politicians to undermine it by unconscionably subverting free, fair and credible elections. To be fair, these shenanigans didn’t start today. Olusegun Obasanjo, as president between 1999 and 2007 shredded the democratic rights of the people to decide who governs them by making elections a do-or-die affair.
But things have gotten a lot worse in the nearly ten years since the All Progressives Congress (APC) supplanted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the centre in 2015. But even as toxic as the eight years of Muhammudu Buhari’s stint in Aso Rock was to the health of Nigeria’s democracy, things are a lot worse today under President Bola Tinubu’s watch. It is as if all caution have been thrown to the wind as politicians continue to act without regard for negative consequences.
What is worse, the judiciary has been sulked into the maelstrom with judges giving judgements that are overtly partisan. The manifest enthusiasm of some judicial officials to play the odious role of democracy undertakers is unnerving. It is a very sad commentary that today, some judges proudly wear their badges of dishonour for serving highly partisan, narrow interests.
It is quite alarming as Prof Chidi Odinkalu, TheNiche columnist put it last Sunday that, “Under the current dispensation, it is almost as if government has a minister responsible for judicial subornation. To many, the leading judges have simply become Wiked and the country has a CJN who appears happy to have the judicial branch fully Nyesomized.”
In the 2023 elections, politicians, particularly of the APC hue, spurred by Tinubu’s hackneyed political philosophy of power not served à la carte, became more brazen in their malfeasance. Time was when the popular refrain in the political circles is that you can only rig elections where you are strong politically. That was the era of voter inducement, ballot box snatching and burning of ballot papers. Not anymore!
Today, nobody cares about those gambits. All anyone needs to win elections in Nigeria today is to control the structures of criminality. Politicians don’t care about the people anymore. They brazenly suborn officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Today, thugs no longer snatch ballot boxes. Days before elections are held, they send out messages that if you are not going to vote for their choice political party, don’t come near the polling booth on Election Day.
And because Nigerian politicians, particularly those who claim it is their turn to misrule Nigeria, don’t take prisoners, they have elevated their devious schemes by writing election results weeks before the first ballot is cast. As if what happens during general elections are not frightening enough, governors have upped the underhanded ante through the so-called local government elections. Governors don’t even pretend anymore. They simply announce purported results of elections that didn’t hold.
To make matters worse, the electorate who should be mourning at the very ugly turn of events, quaff at their own political castration by applauding their tormentors, who they hail as astute politicians for the simple reason that they are adjudged adept at subverting the electoral will of the people.
Today, many Nigerians believe that Tinubu’s “re-election” in 2027 is already a fait accompli not because of the yeoman job he is doing in Aso Rock but because he is the only one that has the capacity to win elections the Nigerian way. The tragedy is that many would-be voters have decided not to accord such shenanigans any legitimacy by keeping their distance from the polling booths henceforth.
I am worried for Nigeria and its democracy. The questions that concentrate my mind everyday as I reflect on the shamelessness of the political elites and their unbelievable lack of emotional intelligence are: Who will call Nigerian politicians to order before it is too late? Who will tell them that they are endangering our hard-won democracy by denying the people the right to decide who governs them through the ballot box?
