BY GREG ODOGWU
WHILE all indices point to a distressed nation, yet we must take a moment to reflect on how blessed we are as a people. By this time 31 years ago, we were a confused bunch. After the sudden annulment of the ongoing June 12, 1993 presidential election, a dark pall enveloped our nation. You could feel the thick weight of brewing violence. Those who have witnessed war – globally or locally – usually say that you could feel it in the air. You look up to the sky and you see death hovering, violence prancing behind the clouds, and invisible blood gradually seeping through the cumulus.
I recall that troubled time, vividly. As a secondary school student, I had watched the presidential debate between the two contestants, MKO Abiola and Bashir Tofa, with excitement. I had my notepad and was excitedly writing down their points as if I was assigned to be a judge in the conversation. It was a great time to be a young Nigerian. I was swept off my feet by the ambient cacophony revving my town in support of Abiola. After I scored Abiola high during the debate, I then felt justified in joining the raving crowd who bayed for him. I could visualise the future president. The “Hope 93” was not just a mantra; it was the hope that I saw until the annulment.
The gloom that replaced the optimism was debilitating. There was a sense of impending doom. I did not witness the Civil War, so I could not relate. But my mother told me that war was in the air. My father kept an expressionless face, but you could tell what was on his mind. He was in the war. Others said it too. They could feel it; they had been there before. As a voracious reader, I had read about World War II. The people in Europe during the time of Adolf Hitler said that they saw the clouds over Europe go ‘dark’ in anticipation of war. It was as if the Grim Ripper circled the skies even before the warplanes began to pierce through. So I knew. I just lay on my bed, hopeless.
The streets were crowded, buzzing with activities. All South Easterners living in the North had come home. Alas, it was happening! They said that was exactly how it went down during Biafra. They now waited for the declaration of war, and the commencement of hostilities. But, thank God, it did not happen. The dark pall gradually lifted. Normalcy returned. Today, we still have peace. Yes, peace. Half peace is better than none.
In June 2018, former President Muhammadu Buhari declared June 12 as the new date for the celebration of Nigeria’s democracy. The decision was to posthumously honour MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Before the new date, Democracy Day was celebrated annually on May 29, which was the day that marked the commencement of this Fourth Republic on May 29, 1999.
I think we are on the right track for going back to June 12. It is a date that resonates with what democracy truly means for us as a people. So, it rings a bell in our consciousness. But the problem is that we seem to be taking only the ceremonial part of it, and not adopting the real meaning. The date June 12 signifies an attempted hijack of democratic processes and institutions, but which we were able to overcome by finally going back to them six years later. We celebrate the truth that our democracy resurrected. It refused to die. We also celebrate the 25 years of uninterrupted democratic rule. Prior to 1999, we had only enjoyed 10 years of democracy out of 39 years of our existence as a country (from 1960).
Therefore, after reflecting on the blessings of God for staying on the path of peace since June 12, 1993, the next thing should be to go into sober soul-searching as a people. What sort of democracy do we have? What are we doing to ensure that it never dies, or is interrupted? Considering the essence of true democracy, is this the best we can have?
We must tell ourselves the truth that our democracy is sliding. To start with, people are no longer talking about the so-called dividends of democracy the way the phrase was universally bandied about at the early stage of this Fourth Republic. It was during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, and we were all excited about the new democracy. The economy began to boom as the public space was opened to fair competition and free speech. However, by the time we arrived at the next election in 2003, politicians began to show signs of despotism. The level of impunity deepened, and the following electoral hijack and fiscal recklessness made ordinary citizens miss the men in khaki. We now had a democracy, but the ‘do or die’ kind.
The masses began to suffer. Their voice never counted anymore – their votes too. The politicians played them like pawns on a chessboard. During election time, they ferried their long convoys to the villages, creeks and clans, with promises of turning these enclaves into megacities. They dropped a few cartons of cash and cold drinks for them and disappeared. They would never be seen again until the next election period, coming back with the same never-to-be-fulfilled promises. The villagers never ask questions because they are too poor to raise their voices. They cannot even afford the fare to Abuja to meet their liar politicians. They have accepted their fate: Take what you can when you can, there is nothing you can do about these politicians.
Is this the democracy we need? We were told that the minority shall have its say, but the majority will have its way. Does the minority have a say anymore? In our type of democracy, they do not. It is now a zero-sum game. The political party in power grabs the entire national cake, the other parties must beg or play. The sub-nationals are the worst hit. In most local government elections, the ruling political party wins all the seats. At the state Houses of Assembly, the opposition is as silent as an empty cathedral. The governor is the emperor; his thoughts are examined with a telescope from afar so that politicians obey them in advance. What a democracy!
Our democracy is sliding, and June 12 should remind us that the abyss is waiting. There may be no military to truncate it, but we might do that with our own hands. Indeed, our children could kill our democracy. We are now so rich from eating the national cake that our overfed children spray dollars in parties and nightclubs. They do not even understand what democracy is all about. They just know that politics has enriched their parents, and they are now reaping the dividends of democracy. And they do not have the capacity to manage what their parents bequeath to them.
Our greed could kill our democracy. Our lust, our gluttony, our corruption, could kill this baby. The monies we spend on SUVs could buy tractors to empower our farmers, but we do not want to look that way. We are fixated on the spending power that democracy has bestowed upon us at an individual level. We do not care about the people we are meant to represent, for that is what true democracy is all about.
