Nigeria’s Democracy On Tinubu’s Leash

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

As a journalist, I admire cartoonists, the visual artists who draw and create engaging captions, for their genius. They are not only creative and original, but also investigative, often incorporating humour, wit and satire in their works. When they are in their element, they graphically capture the imagination of the audience, as the trending cartoon in the BUSINESSDAY newspaper showing President Bola Tinubu having his day in the sun with his four ‘dogs’ – agbero, judiciary, INEC, police – has done.

“I will not be running in 2027 election… I can walk comfortably,” Tinubu crowed. It was simply ingenious, such that a senior journalist who forwarded it to me gushed: “I have never seen a more meaningful cartoon.”

It aptly illustrated the phenomenon of “state capture,” and why many Nigerians believe that 2027 is already a done deal for Tinubu. The cartoon also illustrates what it means to have capacity in Nigerian politics, a euphemism for political brigandage.

The idea of having political structure, which is what the absolute control of the umpire, judiciary, state and non-state actors typifies, is nothing other than the criminalisation of the democratic space.

Our democracy has become a game not birthed in the rule of law and the value of decency but a game where the rule of strong men has become the norm. Anyone who is in doubt should dispassionately analyse what happened in Rivers State before, during and after last Saturday’s local government poll.

The judiciary and police – the primary law enforcement agencies – have aided INEC in making a complete mess of Nigeria’s democracy. Under President Tinubu’s watch, a Nigerian judge ordered the Nigeria Police Force to abdicate its constitutional responsibility as the principal law enforcement and lead security agency in Nigeria and violate Section 4 of the Police Act and Regulations by shirking its responsibilities of prevention and detection of crime, apprehension of offenders and preservation of law and order.

And the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, a man with a PhD in Peace and Security Studies, did the unthinkable – ordered his men off the streets. And when to his mortification, the election was conducted in a relatively peaceful atmosphere, he disingenuously ordered that the 23 local government secretariats which they had occupied since July be unsealed even when there was ample intelligence that hoodlums intended to attack.

And they struck, maiming, killing and destroying public property. As I write, despite the fact that the hoodlums struck in broad daylight, nobody has been arrested and none will be arrested because democracy in Nigeria has become a criminal enterprise. It is about having the capacity to visit terrorism and violence on the people and properties of government. Capacity in Nigeria’s democracy means ability to build structures of criminality.

Penultimate week, I gave an unsolicited advice to Dr. Asue Ighodalo, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate in the September 21 Edo governorship election, thusly: If I were him, I will not go to court to seek redress. The matter will be settled in the streets.

Some people accused me of calling for anarchy. Far from it. Those promoting anarchy are people who work against free, fair and credible polls. In any case, what can be more anarchic than the events that unfolded in Rivers State on Monday?   

Besides, as Frederick Douglass, the escapee slave, who later became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century, once noted: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Douglass further opined that “the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” In other words, power yields nothing until it encounters superior force.

So, as long as the onus is on Ighodalo to prove that the result declared by INEC was not a true reflection of the wishes of the electorate, rather than the responsibility being on the umpire, going to court is an exercise in futility, because he will depend on the benevolence of the same institution that committed the unconscionable electoral heist to prove his case.

Now, INEC under the chairmanship of Professor Mahmoud Yakubu is not known to be charitable. Predictably, it has refused, even when ordered by the Edo State Governorship Election Tribunal, to grant the PDP and Ighodalo access to the materials used for the election.

The enrolled order given in the suit marked EPT/ED/GOV/01M/2024 between Ighodalo Asuerinme and PDP as applicants and INEC, Okpebholo Monday and the APC as respondents and dated September 29, 2024, was unambiguous.

Signed by the tribunal secretary, Mu’azu Ibrahim Bagudu, and chairman, Justice W. I. Kpochi, it ordered INEC to grant the PDP and its candidate “unfettered access to and open up for inspection all electoral documents or any document in the custody of the National Chief Electoral Commissioner or any officer of the Commission/1st Respondent, particularly the Voter Registers, Ballot papers, the BVAS machines, Forms EC25B, EC25B(i) Forms EC40A and Forms EC40C which were utilized for the conduct of the Edo State Governorship election.”

Armed with the order, Ighodalo’s team led by Olusegun Jolaawo, SAN, on Monday, visited the INEC headquarters in Benin City, to access the materials but met a brick wall. The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Anugbum Onuoha refused to see them. After waiting for several hours, they were directed to come back on Tuesday. Unfortunately the same condescending treatment was meted out to them when they returned.

But I doubt if any discerning Nigerian is surprised that despite the explicitness of the enrolled order, it was only going to be observed in the breach. INEC, like the police, judges and, of course, thugs are on the leash as depicted in the sublime cartoon and only hearken to the voice of their master, the man whose time has come to rule Nigeria.

Meanwhile, even as INEC was playing hide and seek, APC supporters, also on Monday, besieged its headquarters in Benin City to ensure that the documents were not released. How lawless can a society get?

The tragedy in all this is that if INEC refuses to release those materials as ordered by the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, nothing will happen. Nothing happened in 2023 when such malfeasance was exhibited. Why will it happen now?

But even if Ighodalo surmounts the INEC hurdle, the judiciary which appears, according to Mr. Jibrin Okutepa, SAN, “to have taken a stand and seems to be siding with the people who have no regard and respect for the sovereignty of the people,” will do maximum damage because the requirement that no subpoenaed witness can testify unless his or her frontloaded statements on oath are filed along with the petitions within 21 days is tantamount to leading the petitioner to a judicial guillotine.

This is where Nigeria’s democracy is right now. Conscienceless men and women, playing god, wilfully subvert the electoral will of the people and ask those handed the short end of the stick to go to court, only to lay ambush at the temple of justice.

But when it is their turn, rather than swallowing the same pill of going to court to ventilate their grievances, if any, they call out their dogs of war, as it was the case in Rivers State on Monday, plundering the commonwealth, maiming and killing.

Perhaps, IGP Egbetokun does not yet realise the enormous damage he has done to the reputation of the Nigeria Police Force in the last one week with his unseemly disposition to duty and appalling subservience to the powers that be. Now, Nigerians know that they don’t need 35,000 police men to have a peaceful election. 

They also know as a matter of fact that the police only provide cover to government-sanctioned heavies rather than guaranteeing the integrity of polls. Egbetokun’s anti-democratic reflexes is a proof that the concept of democracy in Nigeria has become a farce.

The wanton display of sophisticated weapons in Rivers State by non-state actors in the past week is scary. Nigeria is in a bad place. If only Tinubu can read the axiomatic handwriting on the wall and unleash his four dogs to serve common good rather than selfish political ends.

*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)