Is Nigeria A True Democracy? Far From It!

 By Olu Fasan

President Muhammadu Buhari recently said this year’s general elections showed that “Nigeria’s democracy has truly matured.” But speaking on Arise TV, Barry Andrews, Chief Observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria, said: “It’s difficult to point to progress being made in terms of the democratic story of Nigeria.” Basically, he’s saying Nigeria’s “democracy” is too rudimentary to be called a true democracy. Or, as the Financial Times said, “Nigeria remains a democracy, but only just.” Put simply, Nigeria is a Democracy in Name Only, DINO!

But why does Buhari think differently? Well, a former dictator turned “democrat”, he sees democracy through the narrow prism of “voting” in “elections”, with little interest in what happens before, during and after the process. For him, provided there’s “voting”, it doesn’t matter if elections are not free, fair, transparent, and credible; if the will of the people is obstructed through vote-buying and voter-intimidation; and if people’s votes actually don’t count due to ballot-snatching and manipulation of results. 

By contrast, the EU Chief Election Observer comes from a society where true democracy exists and has a philosophical understanding of democratic norms. Of course, the word “democracy”, which originated from ancient Greece, comes from two words: “demos”, meaning “the people”, and “kratos” meaning “power”. 

Thus, democracy means “power of the people”. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president, memorably defined democracy as “government of the people, for the people and by the people.” At the heart of that definition is the principle that, in a democracy, government can only legitimately emerge through the consent of the governed, expressed freely by votes in elections. The consent of the governed freely expressed is what separates democracy from dictatorship, and what separates true democracy from democracy in name only, DINO, which is what Nigeria practises. 

Think about it. How can Buhari say Nigeria’s democracy “has truly matured” when in a country of 220m people, 93m registered to vote in a presidential election and 87m collected their voter cards, but only 25m actually voted, while a “winner” emerged with just 8.8m votes? Surely, whatever factors, of which were voter intimidation and suppression, made 68m of the 93m registered voters, and 62m of the 87m with PVCs, not to vote in this year’s presidential election thwarted the consent of the governed and the will of the people. 

Indeed, how can anyone describe a country where a president is “elected” by miniscule 9.4 per cent of the registered voters and four per cent of the population as a true democracy? And  how can such a president claim to have genuine legitimacy? In the US, with a population of 320m, President Biden was elected with 81.2m votes in 2020! But in Nigeria, with a population of 220m, Bola Tinubu is said to have been elected president with 8.8m votes, even that number was allegedly inflated. Truth is, there can be no democratic legitimacy without the explicit, overwhelming, and credible consent of the governed.

Which brings us to the electoral umpire. How can Nigeria be a true democracy when there’s absolutely no faith in the integrity of theinstitution tasked with conducting its elections? An irreducible element of a true democracy is an independent, impartial, competent and professional electoral body. But the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has always failed to demonstrate independence, impartiality, competence, and professionalism in conducting elections. INEC is dysfunctional and even complicit; its attitude is to conduct discredited and sham elections and tell aggrieved parties: Go to court!

Now, what makes the situation even more unfortunate is that many of Nigeria’s senior election officials are university professors and even vice chancellors. One would expect them to oversee credible elections, devoid of manipulations and fraud. Sadly, as Professor Wole Soyinka famously said, Nigeria is the only country “where professors rig elections for politicians but expel students for examination malpractice.” 

So, credit to Professor Nnenna Otti, vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri and Returning Officer in the Abia State governorship election. She said she was offered bribes and threatened to rig the election but resisted the pressure. As she put it, “they came with their threats, they came with their money, they came with their intimidation.” To her credit, she didn’t succumb! Unfortunately, that can’t be said about many professors who were Returning Officers in the general elections.

But the underlying problem is that elections are a do-or-die affair in Nigeria. Elections are not about contestation of ideas, not about robust but good-naturedcampaigns. Rather, they’re a “war”, a desperation to grab power at all costs. Nigeria is probably the only country where presidential candidates are corralled to sign “peace accord” before every election. Surely, when politicians are desperate for power and when security agents and political thugs are willing to do their biddings, to kill, maim and disenfranchise on their behalf, you can’t have a true democracy. That, sadly, is the “democracy” Nigeria practises!

In a recent editorial, The Washington Post hailed Nigeria’s democracy because, despite the disputed presidential election, there was no post-election violence and “Nigeria’s military has stayed out of the way.” Of course, that’s commendable. But the absence of post-election violence doesn’t make a true democracy when the will of the people, the consent of the governed, is blatantly thwarted and when the state suppresses legitimate protests.

The alarmism about “plots” to instal an “interim government” is clearly an attempt to intimidate Nigerians and is, thus,condemnable.Nigerians don’t want interim government. The biggest challenge ahead, stemming from the sham presidential election, is the crisis of legitimacy. With a questionable mandate, obtained through Nigeria’s worst election in a generation, a President Tinubu would face acute legitimacy crisis. That, a product of Nigeria’s pseudo-democracy, is what should worry everyone, not an interim government.

So, Buhari is wrong. It’s ludicrous to say that this year’s elections, condemned worldwide for failing basic transparency and credibility tests, show that Nigeria’s democracy”has truly matured”. No, it hasn’t! Yet, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Nigeria. It can become a strong democracy if its leaders, people and institutions embrace the universal norms of true democracy. Nigeria’s democratic future depends on radical institutional and culture change!

*Fasan is a commentator on public isuues