June 12 And Nigerian Democracy -By Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

June 12 mean many things for many Nigerians. To some, it is a day in 1993 when a presidential election was annulled the military juntas while to some, especially those who claim to love democracy it is not just an ordinary day but a day that democracy was born in Nigeria. This latter group through deliberate activism and instrumentality of the media has been able to push what was an ordinary election into national consciousness so much so that the Nigeria government under the President Mohammadu Buhari (PMB) declared that day a national holiday to commemorate the birth of democracy in Nigeria. But whether what PMB did was right or wrong is not the subject of this essay. My concern here is about the practice and future of democracy in Nigeria.

The pertinent questions here are: is Nigeria actually practicing democracy? How has democracy fared in Nigeria in the past twenty-six years of unbroken democratic rule? Has Nigeria fared better under civil rule than the military era? What has Nigeria learnt from the June 12 imbroglio? What is the future of Democracy in Nigeria?

Clearly, what we have in Nigeria at present especially under Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not democracy. As a colleague of mine once put it. Nigeria is making mockery of democracy. It will be an aberration to say that we have in Nigeria under the current dispensation is democracy. The structures and institutions that support democracy are either weak or non-existent under the current regime. The executive is despotic while the other arms of government are compromised and corrupted. Democracy thrive better when there is civil engagement but at present, civil advocacy and people’s engagement are suppressed and so is human rights.

Nigerian democracy is expected to grow and wax stronger given the long period of supposed unbroken civilian rule. What Nigeria has now is civil rule and not democracy. Nigeria had what looked democracy in the first sixteen years under the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). But the since the coming of the All Peoples’ Congress (APC) in 2015, the democratic fortunes of Nigeria took a nose dive to the bottom. The democratic gains of the PDP years were reversed. Under the APC regime, corruption and electoral malfeasance became institutionalized. Vote-buying, rigging, election result falsification, ballot box snatching become the order of the day. Rigging is done with impunity with members of security agencies and where rigging is not possible, the result would be declared inconclusive. And most times the courts would be used to perpetuate and uphold fraudulent electoral outcomes.

I will say without any iota of doubt that Nigeria and Nigerians have fared better under the military than the so-called democracy era. It is obvious that the infrastructure and the institutions of governance that Nigeria has today were built during the military era especially during the time of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. What democratic rule that is supposed to unite the nation through consensus building and effective representation has done is worsen the imbalance in the policy, creating distrust and ethnic tension in the polity. Failure to uphold the tenets of democracy has the discontent that has created insecurity in the country. Today, under democratic governance, Nigeria ranks as one of the most dangerous place to live on earth. Under the civil rule, Nigerian economy is pillaged by greedy politicians, making Nigeria the poverty capital of the world as over 70% of the population live below the poverty line. The situation is so bad now that many wish to have the military back.

The implication of all of these is that Nigerians and the Nigeria politicians have learnt nothing from the June 12 imbroglio. The campaigns of the June 12 activists were mere showmanship. If the activists were sincere in their struggle for the revalidation of the June 12 election result it would have shown clearly in their conduct. The implication is that the bulk of the activists were ethnic jingoist masquerading as democrats, as somebody once observed. This seems true as you have activists who are obviously discriminatory in their criticism. They attacked the military and other regimes that were far better than the current regime only to turn blind eyes to obnoxious and anti-people’s policies of the present regime.

And from the way things are going in Nigeria under the regime of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Nigeria democracy has no future. There is unhealthy concentration of power at the center and the country is governed at whims and caprices of one man. As indicated earlier, the people are governed without adherence to the tenets of democracy. The people have no confidence in the state institutions that most times are used to oppress those that they are meant to defend. The government at the center is insensitive to the needs and aspirations of the people. There is growing apathy among the electorates as the people are deliberately impoverished to render them incapable of making free democratic choice. I don’t want to sound alarming but if nothing is done urgently, the current regime may truncate the nation’s democracy.

Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

hajiahadizamohammed@gmail.com

An actress, social activist, politician

London, UK