Our democracy has taken passenger’s seat

By Mike Kebonkwu

Permit me when I say that I am unable to understand the variant of government we have practiced since 1999 when the military was forced to step aside through the sustained and patriotic struggle of Nigerian people. 

The epochal struggle against the military despotism was spearheaded by the Nigerian students, the organized labour through Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and its affiliates.

Other notable associations that galvanized the citizenry were the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), and civil society organizations of different hues.  Our democracy was not given on a platter; it was fought for and won by the sweat and blood of the Nigerian people.

Today, that democracy has been hijacked by anti-democratic elements parading themselves as progressives and renegade labour leaders.

Democracy and rule of law, like Siamese twin, are interwoven and inseparable; one cannot exist without the other.  Democracy stands on the pillar of the rule of law not the whims and intuition of an absolute and maximum ruler under the veil of a saintly garb.

The measuring rod of democracy is not just periodic elections but that the votes of the people count.   We are where we are today because of the apathy that set in amongst the pro-democracy activists and progressive elements who after forcing the military out of government did not see the need to take over power as a revolutionary imperative.

Democracy thrives on strong institutions and respect for the rule of law and civil liberties of citizens.

Our problem started when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who did not understand the ethos of democracy metamorphosed into the first civilian president after a contrived election.

He subverted the rule of law and carried on as if Nigeria was an extension of his Ota Farm.  Obasanjo no doubt appears like a patriot even though he was self-serving and opinionated with scant respect for the rule of law.

It can never be said of him that he was an ethnicist.

Rather than build a transparent and credible electoral system, he became the harbinger of electoral heist and ballot manipulations.

Under his watch, election results were declared where no elections were held; candidates were arbitrarily chosen, dropped or swapped.

There was no internal democracy in the political parties. Obasanjo it was that introduced the ‘do or die’ principle in elections which has sadly remained with us today with even more ferocious display of violence as in combat.

President Buhari today reminds most Nigerians who were of age about 1984 when he was the military Head of State after his coup d’état of the December 31, 1983.

Buhari was perceived as a disciplined officer with integrity and committed to revamping the economy not through any known economic model but discipline.

One recalls what we now have as the Department of State Services (DSS) today was known as National Security Organization (NSO) headed by one Lawal Rafindadi.

The NSO was dreaded like a Nazi Gestapo with uncontrolled abuse of human rights of citizens and critics of the regime.  It was reputed for its torture chambers and prolonged detention without trial.

Buhari’s 1984 regime became an aphorism for George Orwell’s novel by the same title, 1984 which depicts a state of absolute totalitarianism and unrestrained fascism.

It further exposed a government that became so despotic that it monitors your thoughts and instils fear into every citizen; the “Big Brother is watching you” representing the spectre of fear of the State.

It is also instructive that the same Buhari regime introduced Decree No.2 which was against free speech and freedom of the press.

This is the state that Nigeria has become today and one needs no soothsayer to tell him that the Social Media Bill is intended to serve the same purpose to gag the press and mute citizens after all we have laws against slander and defamation already.

We are in the worst of times because the guardian angels and sentinel of democracy and the rule of law and liberties of the citizens, the judiciary is under vicious siege.

In all the dark days of military dictatorship, the state did not attack the judiciary in such a brazen manner of invading the court room and forcing a sitting judge to scamper for safety.

We appear to be all truck with dumb passivity and cannot protest and demand that the head of the DSS be sacked for the sacrilegious act to the third arm of government.

President Buhari’s disdain for lawyers and the judiciary is legendary and he did not mince words during the early days of his government when he openly declared that his problem was with the judiciary.

The president’s attack on the judiciary was well calibrated.

His first moved was against some Justices of the Supreme Court after painting them with the brush of corruption using the same DSS to invade their homes; treating them as common criminals, and nobody spoke up.

Next, he took on the number one lawyer and Chief Justice of Federation, Walter Onnoghen and sacked him with ignominy without recourse to the rule of law and the provision of the constitution; it was just enough to invoke the hated word, corruption.

That is how we are in Nigeria; bring Pope Francis to Nigeria and hang the tag of corruption on his neck without investigation, we will call for his head.

We lost whatever semblance of democracy with the incident of December 6, and the invasion of the Federal High Court Abuja by men of the Department of State Services just for the purpose of re-arresting Omoyele Sowore on whose order to release by the court was ignored all along.

It was an infamy and desecration of our symbol for freedom and democracy.  The court and its precinct is a place of liberty of citizens and there is no earthly reason for its violation under any guise by an agency or institutions of government.

Recall the lawless invasion of the National Assembly by the same DSS caused the former Director, Mr Lawal Daura his job.

I am amazed though not surprised that the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) did not protest in a measured manner to this lawlessness that was tacitly endorsed by the state.

The passivity of civil society organisations, NGOs, and organized labour to this attack shows that democracy indeed has been taken over by buccaneers who perceive Nigeria as a captured fiefdom.

There is nothing left for Nigerians under the APC-led government now that our civil liberties have been taken away and the judiciary has been struck by incubus.

It is a shame that the NBA cannot fight for its own soul with all their élan of learnedness.    By now, the leadership of NBA should have been impeached if it were a serious organization that cares about the rule of law and the violations of civil liberties.

It perhaps exists just to collect annual dues and organize jamboree without accountability.  The NLC has since lost its bite with leadership that operate like traders of fortune who have lost the sense of history behind the NLC.

This government like others before it took oath to defend the laws and constitution of this country and we should hold them to task.

It cannot be said in a democracy that a citizen is directed or ordered not to speak to the press or compelled to live within a geographical location he has no house at the behest of an agency of government using the court that it has no regard for in the first place.

A judge that is worth his onions will not sign away the fundamental right of citizens out of fear of oppression of the state.

The opposition political parties are busy chasing the shadow of third term kite flown by APC.  President Buhari cannot contemplate a third term; it is a distraction being marketed by APC to consider its electoral value after 2023.   We should as Nigerians come out to reclaim our democracy as we cannot afford to allow it take passenger’s seat.

• Kebonkwu Esq writes from Abuja.

Credit: The Nation Newspapers