Can Nigeria Ever Experience Genuine Democracy?

What do we know about democracy? Well, I know it’s a system of government made of the people, by the people and for the people. I remember reciting this in government class back in SS1, 11 years ago. I guess that knowledge was important after all.

A plethora of countries use this system of government to rule their nations. And ideally, it is one of the best ways to make executive decisions in a nation. Nigeria is one such country operating under democracy.

Given the state of the country today, has democracy helped our people? Could there be a better alternative?

A true democratic government features free and fair elections, a safe representation of the people, rule of law, freedom of speech, and the like. This directly contrasts non-democratic systems where dictatorship, monarchy or military rule is the order of the day.

Taking a closer look at our country today, it is undoubtedly obvious that somewhere down the line, our definition of democracy became warped. Our leaders lost sight of what truly matters, which is the wellbeing of the general populace, and they began thinking of themselves.

Take the last presidential election, for example. In a democratic reign, elections are supposed to be free, fair and safe. But would you say the last election was fair or safe? -Far from it.

I remember leaving my school hostel with my personal voter’s card in my purse and going to cast my vote, thinking that if things went well, Nigeria could finally be great again. When I left my school environment, the roads were deserted, with no buses or tricycles in sight.

Thankfully, the voting center I chose wasn’t so far away from my school; all together, it was a 30-minute walk to get to the location. When I finally got to the venue, I met students like myself, who were waiting to cast their votes too.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity. And then the INEC officials came in with their paraphernalia and began setting up the voting stations. They eventually set the whole thing up, and not long after, the voting process commenced.

Two hours into the process, we got some feedback online on how the voting process was going generally across the nation. In the east, it was actually peaceful; the general populace were mostly unified in their decisions.

But apparently, the opposite was the case in the western region. We saw videos where some voting centers refused to allow certain people to cast their votes. In some centers, miscreants were sent to cause havoc and ruin the process altogether. In some places, the INEC officials never showed up, while in some centers, gunfire was raised.

The day was a brutal one for everybody. When the day finally came to an end, social media was buzzing with news surrounding it. Days after, we awaited collation of our votes. That’s when we heard that some vote counts had been tampered with and manipulated. The values had been changed, and we saw evidence of it.

You needed to see how quiet my school compound was when the presidential election winner was announced. It was as though a loved one had died; we all collectively went into a period of grief and mourning. Mourning the Nigeria we held out hope for. It was bad.

I bring this up to say that, all things considered, Nigeria does not operate under a true democracy but a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. They give us the illusion that we somehow have a say in our policymaking and government, but we do not.

And it would be a shame to judge the present state of this country as though it were under a democratic ruling.

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Thanks for reading. ☺

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