Showing posts with label Social Media Bill in Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media Bill in Nigeria. Show all posts

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Social Media Bill: Short Walk To Total Totalitarianism?

By Matthew Hassan Kukah
I have consistently tried to create levels of differentiation between democracy and dictatorship, especially dictatorships of the military variant as we have had in Nigeria. I have argued that Nigeria is still very far away from the goal posts of what could be called a democratic society. In my view, the environment does not as yet look anything democratic because the actors are largely strangers to the ethos of democratic governance, and what is more, too many of them are tied to the old order, not to talk of the fact that the presence of General-presidents suggest that we are still in the thrall of militarism.
*Kukah
Democracy thrives on debate, consensus building, negotiation, persuasion, argumentation, rule of law, process and inclusion. The military thrives in a coup culture, secrecy, betrayal, violence, command structure, exclusion and lack of transparency. That explains why I have always warned against describing the current charade of violent elections as democracy.