BY tomorrow, Tuesday October 1, Nigeria will be marking 64 years of political Independence from British colonial rule but make no mistakes about it, there are no drums to be rolled out. The mood across the country does not in any way justify any elaborate celebration. On the contrary, there are those routing for mass action to protest the severe hardship. That possibly is their own way of expressing the discontentment that over six decades of political independence has left us with deeply entrenched poverty, pervasive insecurity, political instability, paradoxical disconnect between potential and existing economic realities. The burden of independence to the average citizen is daily becoming unbearable.
The mood in the country was palpably self-evident when the President’s wife, Oluremi Tinubu launched a local fabric #oneNigeriaunityfabric to be used for the celebration of the national day.
The First lady was widely perceived as being insensitive and out of touch with the harsh realities of families being famished and citizens deserting their fatherland over unbearable economic hardship and fast receding prospects of a better tomorrow. Nigerians have reasoned that it is a puerile notion bordering on infantile proclivity to canvass that a nation so sharply discomfited by severe economic inequality and growing insecurity can be once again united by Aso ebi to be worn on the day of independence.
The Nation’s independence has always been treated with such historic significance and socio-cultural attachment bordering on intense emotionality and euphoria of freedom from oppression. This is no longer the case as the hope that came with political independence has waned significantly giving way to despair and public discontentment. Beyond the traditional public holidays and the presidential broadcast that end up explaining away squandered opportunities , failures and serving yet another diet of hope on the despaired and impoverished citizens, a season such as this presents to us an ample platform to reflect on how we have fared as a people.
After aborted strings and stints of democratic dispensations with overlay of protracted military interregnums, Nigeria appears to have settled for democracy as a system of government. Twenty-five years of unbroken democracy, a growing concern is that democracy as practiced in our clime is programmed to benefit only a section of the political elites. Never really fathomed that the will and interest of the majority of the people can still be discarded and we still have what can be flaunted to the world as democracy after 64 years of independent nationhood There’s no doubt that elections constitute the very heart and nucleus of democracy. Through them, mandates are given, secured or renewed as leadership emerges from a free, fair and credible process. Nigeria’s experience in leadership emergence has been fraught with crises and incongruity. The danger in this is that even in a democracy, we are beginning to have leaderships that trace their political ascendancy to a group of kingmakers and god fathers rather than to the expressed will of the electorate through the ballot box. This has resulted in citizens being disconnected from the activities of government as the obvious lack of legitimacy has its own way of translating into apathy and snowballed discontentment. Right from the first republic, political office seekers have had to give more time to how the expressed will of the people can be subverted. 64 years on, the nation is still in the throes of this democratic debacle of how results of elections can truly reflect the will of the people. The expectation had really been rife that after the initial failings and faltering of democracy and the protracted military experience marked by institutionalized impunity and resort to draconialism and authoritarianism that our resolve at democracy will gain traction through the refining wheel of the rule of Law, institutional decorum and public acceptability.
Sixty Four years down the line, Nigeria spends fortune on electoral process that often ends up as a sham and public embarrassment. How for instance can INEC justify the deployment of N355 bn into 2023 general election which eventually played out a premeditated outcome that fell short of global standards bordering instead on operational modes of military seizure of power. At the end of the day, the outcome as announced by INEC reflected more of the designs of a section of powerful elites who have held the nation under some form of siege, determining the next chain of actions, deciding who gets what and who becomes what in the political space.
Following the Supreme Court ruling on the autonomy of Local Government Authorities, a number of States are currently organizing local government elections . This ordinarily appears to be a positive trend or development as a firm democratic culture is needed at the grassroots, the concern however is that these elections do have predictable outcome as the political party in power at the State level end up sweeping the polls. Saturday September 21, 2024 turned out to another annals in the history of democratic evolution in Nigeria with Edo 2024. The build-up was anything but democratic. Even a critical actor dubbed it a do-or-die affair. The two leading governorship candidates also shunned the pre-election debate thereby denying the electorate the benefit of having an insight into what they planned to do for the people of the State. A party was also reported as declining to participate in the signing of the peace accord. Peter Obi said what happened in Edo was more of a State capture rather than a civil election.
Many still frown at the militarization and use of impunity at the wards and local government collation centers. This was done in violation of the provisions of the electoral Act, 2022. The expectation that INEC could have used Edo 2024 to redeem itself was once again dashed. Even former President Goodluck Jonathan was reported as saying that technology alone cannot save the future of Nigeria’s democracy if the orientation of the human person manning the technology is not duly addressed. It is also in that light that many are calling for a reinvention of Prof Humphrey Nwosu’s option A4. In all these, it remains a matter of serious concern if 64 years after independence we are finding it difficult to conduct a credible civil exercise that is so central to democracy in line with global standards.
