Basic interpretation of the quintessence of a democratic government is that it is a government
that is sanctioned by the people; one which goes about in performance of its duties, as the people
pleases. In other words, a democracy is a government that is literally owned by citizens, within
the territory of which the government exerts authority. When we put this into perspective with
regards to Nigeria’s own brand of democracy, what we see is a government that owns the people.
A government that imposes, by all means possible, its own biases and political preference on the
people without as much as giving it a thought. It’s like the Nigerian government wakes up in the
morning, for instance, and finds anything unbecoming, or per chance suddenly develops a change
of mind over anything, no matter the position of the people, the government simply ignores the
people and goes on with whatever it thinks is the appropriate response. Here is a democracy
where criticism against the government is construed as a personal attack on officials of
government. It is even a sad commentary that Nigerians have made every debate about the
country’s democracy revolve around the president and the presidency in recent time, instead of
about the whole system, across the stratum of the polity.
Nigeria’s model of democracy is such that public officials mistake themselves for government, in
fact, they are also seen by the people as the government. And not just the government. Public
officials under the Nigerian form of democracy see selves as the state. At the various states, the
governors there superintending the affairs of the government in those states, are both, in person,
the government of their states and also the state, themselves. Without exception, no governor in
Nigeria has any semblance of democratic culture hence, they all deep hands into the coffers of
public money and take humongous amounts in the name of security votes which they now divert
to private use. Similarly, they completely emasculate the local governments in the state and
stripe it of anything that in any way is suggestive of an independent level of government. In the
state Assemblies, it is these governors that determine, by use of intimidation in clear violation of
basic democratic traditions, who becomes the Speaker of the House, as well as who occupy other
principal offices in the Assembly.
Having comprehensively destroyed the local government system, these governors handpick and
appoint Transition Caretaker into the local government system and then enjoy unrestrained
access to funds meant for these local governments in their states. These appointed agents of the
state at the local government go on and continue under the pretext that they lack real executive
powers, fleece on public resources that trickles down to them. More disturbing is the fact that
even when there is local government election, those that emerge winners must each, be so
appointed by the governor in a sham election, under the supervision of the state electoral commission. This is Nigeria’s democracy. A democracy, where the people fear their leaders
because they can be summarily killed with absolutely no consequence. A democracy where
officials of government publicly enrich themselves boldly with public funds and nothing
happens.
This is a democracy where the President feels personally attacked by people who disagree with
him. Interestingly, this year’s democracy has been commemorated with an infringement on free
speech by way of the Federal Government’s ban on Twitter, which is still effective. What sort of
democracy functions without free speech? Ours is a democracy that on democracy day, peaceful
protesters in Lagos and Abuja, the country’s economic and political capitals, were attacked by
law enforcements and teargas fired at them for engaging in a peaceful march, to make certain
legitimate demands from their government. So it is clear that within the reality of Nigeria’s brand
of government system masquerading as a democracy, the people’s feelings, concerns,
contributions and questions, are defiantly ignored. Now, the President and those close to him just
about in the same measure of degree as is the case in the states, controls the federal legislature
and judiciary at the federal level, just as the state governors control the legislature, judiciary and
the local government system which are under their states. While the president lays claim to
ownership of the government and the country, literally, the governors lay claims to ownership of
the state government and all apparatchik of government in the state. Looking at it, they do, in
reality.
It is considerably more unfortunate when we mull over the fact that Nigerians are not exactly
troubled, not so badly, at least as has been the case in the past years. Hence, each election year,
politicians and public officials deploy large amounts of money to buy the exact number of votes
that will make them retain their positions. That is; Nigerians after enduring violent abuses and
denigration from their leaders, are paid a token to still give their votes to these same people, and
they accept. Not surprising, vote-buying is a dominant character of our democratic process. As of
today, no politician interested in wining an election both at primary and general election, without
adequate and superior vote-buying machinery duly deployed. During political party primaries
which are the first test of the democratic process, nearly no delegate is willing to vote for
credibility. They all vote for the highest bidder. Same thing happens in the general election. Such
a grievous pity!
And so, while the President Buhari led government has shown far less willingness to undertake
governance without abuse of certain fundamental democratic process and rights, as well as
govern in consonance with democratic tenets, however, the challenge of democracy in principle
and practice in Nigeria, is beyond Buhari and his government. It is even worse when we consider
that out of the twenty-two years of Nigeria’s unbroken democracy, fourteen of those years so far,
have been spent by former military heads of state. We have seen, between former President
Obasanjo and now President Buhari, the striking similarities in terms of attitudes to freedom and
other democratic attributes and we know that their military background is squarely responsible. It
must however be noted that military background has little or nothing to do with their inability to deliver good governance. And so for twenty-two years, the weightier issue of governance has
completely eluded Nigerians, such that each new government appears perpetually worse than the
previous government. It of course stands to reason that if Nigeria has not been able to figure out
the basics, how much worse can getting the job done be. Consequently, there are countless cases
of extrajudicial murder sanctioned by none other than the government or its agencies of coercion.
Insecurity in Nigeria as a whole has attained a national high point that’s totally new and strange.
Yet, people are left by the government to survive with it and move along if they can. Under this
persistent chaos, just how exactly is this democracy?
This is not a democracy. This, at best is a civilian government led by a former military dictator.
Admittedly, at the state and in various government institutions, we have dictators who have no
affiliation with the military, but still dictators. Beyond these to which every reality points, there
is hardly any justification to assert that a system where elections are won by highest bidders, free
speech stifled, government at grassroots completely obliterated, peaceful demonstrations banned,
criticism shunned, other arms of government colonized and silenced by the executive arm at the
centre and state, is anything but democratic.
Nigeria must make peace with the fact that democracy is not what you call it, it is what it is; a
government that the people own and that is answerable to the people. Nigerians must also rise up
to their responsibility as expected of the people, in a democracy, if this will become one.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
