It pisses me off when our leaders or anyone mentions that we are practicing a democratic system of government in Nigeria. I always feel like dragging them out of my screen for some correctional knock, something that would make them realize that we are millions of miles away from democracy. I was very young when Nigeria fully became a democratic republic in 1999, and it's been 25 solid years with nothing to show for embracing a new system of government, and up to this moment, I can confidently say that we haven't practiced a bit of democracy in the country.
To my best understanding, democracy is a system of government where power is held by the people. Not everyone will make decisions directly for the country, but we can choose a representative by the law to govern and make decisions for the people. These representatives are elected through a free and fair election; they are expected to protect the interests of the people and serve and be accountable to the people, but which of these things are happening despite our claims to be a democratic nation?
Let's start with the free and fair election of a thing that has never happened in Nigeria. I remembered a time when I almost lost my life while trying to get my voter's card due to a thug invasion on the premises. A lot of people were injured, and it's impossible to believe that these thugs were acting on their own.
All in the name of the election, many voters lost their lives while trying to exercise their fundamental human rights. Journalists are being shut down for exposing candidates secrets and dirty games, manipulation & intimidation at different voting units, buying of votes, rigging results, and so many other atrocities that are against the democratic system of government.
I am always surprised at how political candidates, even at the local level, get dirty all in the name of attaining power; all of these would have been different if they were truly going to serve the nation and not the other way around. So how are we practicing democracy when we can't even get it right with the election process?
Let's take a quick glance at how our representatives up there are protecting our interests as citizens. Without going into details, the situation of Nigeria at the moment says it all because there is no way a government that protects the interests of the people will allow the people to go through so much hardship.
We don't have good infrastructures, and even the available ones are only accessible to some caliber of people in the society. These same special people are protected by the law while the masses suffer in the hands of the law. Security is zero, and that's even worse because those who are meant to protect life and property are the ones destroying it. As a matter of fact, the system is terrible, and it's complete chaos.
We are going through a lot, and instead of making decisions to ease the pain, they still make unreasonable laws to inflict more pain on the citizens. The price of goods has gone from bad to worse; we now buy petroleum for 1,000 naira plus you have to stay in line for hours, and I wonder how these things are in the interest of the citizens.
Even when we wanted to speak about bad governance, we were killed like flies, and today, everything that happened at the Lekki tollgate massacre has been buried without justice. The police will abuse their power on us, and the civil servants are not exempt. We can't hold a peaceful protest, no freedom of speech, and with all these things, I wonder what connection Nigeria as a country has with a democratic system of government.
Honestly, there is no solution except our system of government is dismantled and redefined. It's so bad that I can't even trust the younger generation with the government because corruption has infested so much into our system. To get things right with democracy, we have to retrace our steps back to the foundation to fix where it all went wrong.
These reformations will require the cooperation of every citizen, both young and old, regardless of the tribe or ethnic groups. Our differences must be put aside during the election, and we must put the interests of the nation first before individual interests. We all have to agree to setting things right, or else nothing will be achieved in the country as a whole.
With unity and our cooperation at their peak, we can demand accountability, elect those we want in power, and those who we put in power won't mess with us in anyway.
