Our Amazing Democracy, by Aliyu Dahiru Aiyu
Nigeria is an amazing country with amazing people. Despite depressions here and there, many Nigerians are still optimistic about the future of the country. So amazing is our democracy that activists preaching the cause of democracy are militaristic in their ways. You might have seen how they block roads in protests and how less entertained they are to the alternative views. Isn’t it perplexing that those benefiting from the democracy are the ones silently destroying its shaky foundation?
You can clearly see the absence of democracy in such organisations where oppression of subordinates is manifested in the language of the “immediate effect” and where “bosses” are not leaders but want to be worshipped like gods. Some of these untouchable almighties are the ones you see majestically crossing their legs at the high-tables offering speeches on the “possible solutions to the lingering problems bedeviling our democracy”. So many Abachas writing against Abacha! When outside, they dress in Lincoln’s regalia. When inside, they promote force, order, intimidation, and compulsion; forcing their subordinates to different forms of anxieties and trauma.
Authoritarianism has followed Nigeria from military rule. Intimidations, harassments, disregard of civil rights, and destroying due process have made democratic culture in Nigeria totally absent. Not only in government offices where corruption and disregard of rule of law is from the highest to the lowest, even within families, oppression of less, powerful like women and children, are not beyond the house next-to-door.
Factionalism and ethnic prejudices are making our democracy murky water to swim. Nigerian elites inherited from “colonial legacy” how to use ethnicity to divide and conquer. When it comes to manipulation of ethnicity, Nigerians forget poverty and lack of resources and promote sectarianism and regional sentimentalism. Social media is contributing to the menace of ethnic sectarianism by giving purveyors of hate speech free platforms to trade in hate speeches and to beat the drums of war. The poor in this country is a puppet of his political masters.
What about poverty? Nigeria is becoming poorer and poorer every day. No thanks to its oil-rich resources that made our economy monolithic. We over depended on single resource and didn’t heed to the advice of economists until when there is no field to run. When there is an oil boom, leaders take the lion’s share. When the reverse is the case, they have no option but to push the nation into debts – leaving behind them the legacy of borrowing. Even though by every conceivable measure, Nigeria is richly endowed with resources and agricultural lands, but it falls to the hands of people who don’t care to use the resources wisely. I don’t have to tell you that a large percentage of Nigerians are poor. We all know that.
As we all know, democracy is a process and no one will deny that we have made some progress especially in terms of personal freedom, but we are still behind in many pillars of democracy. Even the personal freedom is under threat. Our well-paid do-nothing lawmakers are trying hard to steal our rights to rant by introducing and plagiarising different bills to stop us from breathing fresh air – free speech. We successfully fought back many attempts to define our noises as hate speech, but it seems they are not ready to move back.
More than two decades of democracy in Nigeria but there is still no peace in many parts of the country. Many places are bloody as attacks intensify. Katsina is in mess. Borno in trouble. Kaduna under attacks. Zamfara is on fire. Borno and Yobe bleed. Nowhere to run. No place to hide. Nigeria is celebrating democracy. A fake democracy.
