By Promise Adiele
In practical terms, one can confidently argue that democratic governance in Nigeria as we know it is disappearing, vanishing across all levels of political corridors. The politicians are engaged in inordinate, self-serving machinations towards retaining power in 2027. Unfortunately, many Nigerians, lacerated by hunger, poverty, and deprivation have become cheerleaders for the politicians, justifying why an incompetent cast should remain on stage in the next election. We have deliberately embraced myopia which accounts for our collective statis, turning a blind eye to all the infirm realities of our economic and social conditions. Not because of our documented, longsuffering identities but because we are simply timid, daily parading defeated consciences in the celebration of the disappearance of democratic governance in our country. When a few courageous people speak up against the absence of democratic governance in the country since 2023, attack dogs, themselves victims of the feeble economy, manifest neurosis of resistance in defence of a cosmologically discredited system. It is either because their ethnic, religious, political or economic interests are challenged or they are averse to the enthronement of an egalitarian order which would summarily consign them to the frontiers of ignominy. Indeed, it is a farewell to democratic governance in Nigeria at all levels.
When Daniel Bwala, Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Public Communication and Media declared in December 2023 that even if you give Mr. President 30 years nothing will work, many people thought he was playing politics. That was before he shamelessly turned around to gleefully feast on the putrid contents of his vomit. Bwala was speaking in his capacity as the PDP Presidential Campaign Council spokesperson in the 2023 general elections. His statements were prophetic and accurate. Mortar and pestle can easily bear witness to the exactitude of his rare moment of epiphany. Perhaps, Bwala should be recognized as the Delphic Oracle of our time or better still, the Ifa prognostic essence in human form.
Since Tinubu’s ascension to power, democratic governance seems to be disappearing in Nigeria and in its place is hardship, inflation, poverty and a profligate governance protocol that benefits a few to the detriment of the masses. The current government has not positively affected the lives of Nigerians in any identifiable way which gives credence to Bwala’s 2023 effusions. Every Nigerian citizen survives on sheer resilience and not because of any governmental intervention. Nigerians are daily assaulted by the government’s insensitive policies which culminate in an affront to their civic beings. The power psychosis of the political class is anti-progressive and does not contribute to the well-being of the common people. In the place of democratic governance, the government feeds the people with misleading economic indices which do not reflect the prices of goods and services on the streets. Pointers to the absence of democratic governance in Nigeria are the total lack of accountability to the people and a positive economic outline that leads to recovery and revival. To add salt to injury, the APC government, assured that Nigerians are prostrate and will hardly react to anything, is seriously making plans to retain power in 2027. Nothing could be more depressing.
In Rivers State, there has been absolutely no semblance of governance since 2023. The people of the state cannot, in good conscience, beat their chest to assert that there is governance in the state. Governor Sim Fubara, a beneficiary of the electoral chicanery and mangled system orchestrated by Nyesom Wike has never enjoyed his time as an elected governor. Reports of electoral heist in Rivers State after the 2023 governorship election suggest that Fubara and Wike conspired to deny the people of Rivers State their collective electoral decision. But there is never honour among thieves. Sharing the loot between Fubara and Wike has almost crippled the state and governance has become a tell-tale in the oil-rich state. Only Yesterday, Bola Tinubu sacked Fubara and summarily ushered in the Khaki boys into a democratic dispensation. I have no business in the matter but Tinubu’s actions reeks of bias because while sacking Fubara, he spared the arrowhead of the conflagration in the state, Nyesom Wike. The history of the first republic seems to be repeating itself. Now, the military has been introduced into the fray. As the late literary sage Chinua Achebe reminds us, he who brings ant-infested firewood home should not complain when lizards visit. It is only a biased father that would intervene in a fight between two of his children by blaming one child and exonerating the other. A terrible master strategist has betrayed innate bias by protecting the real troublemakers in Rivers State.
Democratic Governance also seems to be disappearing in Lagos State as in other parts of Nigeria. According to elected members of the Lagos House of Assembly, the Speaker Mr. Mudashiru Obasa was impeached for reasons bordering on fraudulent activities and corruption. A new speaker was elected. However, because the people of Lagos State, the electorate, do not matter in the APC political laboratory, Mr. President intervened. The corrupt, fraudulent Obasa as declared by the House of Assembly was reinstated and today, he is the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly with all the baggage on his head. The hands of elected House of Assembly members were twisted. The hands of the Executive Governor of the State were also twisted and Obasa made a grand return as the Speaker. The events in the states crippled governance as everyone was busy fighting for political survival and as usual, the people, the electorate moved about their duties unconcerned. With these developments, it appears that the last thing on the minds of the APC political gang is governance. While the people stew in the crucible of hardship, daily confronted by survival, political leaders are busy with scheming, shuffling and re-alignments towards 2027. It is a sad reality.
The Nigerian judiciary has not covered itself in any shred of glory in all the developments in Lagos State and Rivers State. As the bastion of constitutional interpretation, the judiciary has ingeniously transformed into a political tool for the prejudiced reconciliation of different political conflicts. Perhaps, the Nigerian judiciary so constituted is supreme to any electoral reform towards the 2027 elections. In the final analysis, we would all be encouraged to embrace the insipid mantra “go to court” after the 2027 elections. The political class is deeply invested in 2027 and that informs every decision of government at all levels. Although Bola Tinubu has titillated the emotions of his admirers by stating that he has no interest in re-election for now, his actions, appointments, and decisions reveal a man committed to retaining power by his set standards irrespective of the wishes of Nigerians. A comparison of the economic situation of Nigerians before the current government came to power and now shows an abysmal disparity in the cost and standard of living. It exposes a government more interested in political glory than improving the lives of the people through responsible, equitable governance.
Nigerians have the responsibility to determine what happens in their country and how they want to be governed. Will Tinubu’s introduction of Khaki boys into a democratic dispensation be his nemesis? Will Nigerians continue to watch their country trampled upon by an unconscionable political class whose interest is antithetical to equitable governance? Speaking in a forum in Ikoyi last week, I argued that the Nigerian re-enactment of absurdist sensibilities where two vagabonds Estragon and Vladimir waited in vain for Mr Godot will be catastrophic. Nigerians waited for Mr Godot under Buhari for eight years. Instead of salvation, those eight years became a study in economic backwardness setting the stage for the current stymied conditions in the country. The current administration has surpassed the previous one in every iota of regression and infamy. As a testament to the Nigerian hopeless situation, the Buhari hellish days have become the good old days. Let democratic governance return to the federal and state levels before it is too late. Let the people have a sense of belonging that they indeed have a government. No matter what Tinubu and the current political class may think or how docile Nigerians may appear, the electorate is still the primal custodian of democracy. Nigerians who chased the military away are still Nigerians, they have not changed. The Nigerian youths that chased SARS away are still Nigerian youths. A stitch in time saves nine.
Dr. Promise Adiele is of the Mountain Top University and can be reached via promee01@yahoo.com; X: @drpee4
