Of Nigeria Democracy And The Poignant Anti-democratic Practices -By Adesina Julius .O

Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused in a time when totalitarian regimes have attempted to claim popular support by pinning democratic labels upon themselves.

Democracy is more than a set of constitutional rules and procedures that determine how a government functions. In a democracy, government is only one element coexisting in a social fabric of many and varied institutions, political parties, organisations, and voluntary associations.

In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln (1861), democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Ever since Nigeria got her independence from the British in 1960, there has been a kind of ‘juginho to Rudiger’ pass of power. The same soldiers who go are still the same who return in agbada, and that is why our barrack remains the same.

These are the same set of people who had been playing a soccer of power with Nigerians, even till when Nigeria began to be called a democratic state. From this, we can only infer that Nigeria only operate democracy in paper and not in practice.

From 1960 till date Nigeria as a country has experienced four republics, of all the countries in Africa, Nigeria’s situation has always been classified as something different because the country has been operating autocratic rule due to the unethical practice of democracy.

Our government is so pathetically dysfunctional that at the lower level institutions of government, only few individuals are truly concerned with government matters. Thus our institutions remain very weak.

Today, there is nothing worth celebrating being the 26years of uninterrupted Democratic rule in Nigeria. In contrast, today is for sober reflection because there is nothing worth celebrating than failure. It is so disheartening seeing some people celebrating governmental incompetency and failure like an achievement.

There is no gainsaying in the fact that those who started the Nigeria project had good intentions, uphold the tenet of rule of law and are receptive to criticism before the project was hijacked by rogues and Junta who are determined to loot the nation dry.

But with leaders like them, Nigeria’s democracy will remain “a demonstration of craze” as admonished by the late Afrobeat pioneer, Fela Anikulapo, in his 1986 hit track.

As citizens, we all have crucial roles to play in a functioning democracy, since the government is the reflection of individual character, we must all stand up and be confident as we work towards the actualisation of the aspirations and expectations of Nigerians from the government. We must cease from being a thermometer that justifies neo-liberal ideals of government but morph into a thermostat and revolutionise Nigeria.

May Nigeria thrive so that Nigerians can succeed.