REFLECTIONS ON DEMOCRACY DAY
Democracy should bring more of economic joy, not existential threats
Until 2018, ‘Democracy Day’ was marked in Nigeria on May 29. But in changing the date to June 12, then President Muhammadu Buhari said his administration had decided not only to honour the sacrifices of the men and women who fought for the return to civil rule but also to create an environment for democracy to be an accepted way of life in Nigeria. In the past one week, the federal government has embarked on a series of programmes with the grand finale expected today when President Bola Tinubu delivers a state of the nation address at the National Assembly. While we do not want to pre-empt the president, we are celebrating democracy day with a sense of foreboding.
It is indeed noteworthy that earlier in the year, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas and another lawmaker, Daniel Asama, pushed a controversial bill that was later withdrawn which sought to transform voting from a personal choice into a legal obligation. Based on their assessment that the number of Nigerians who vote at elections has become “abysmally low”, they wanted to make not voting a criminal offence in Nigeria when it is obvious that political office holders have not done enough to earn the trust of many Nigerians. But the biggest challenge is in the violence that defines this season which speaks to a national psychology that has devalued human life to the lowest level.
From North to South and East, hundreds of people are being killed almost daily either by criminal cartels or lone wolves who seem to have overpowered the capacity of the state. On a day such as this therefore, we must interrogate a democracy that can neither defend itself without resorting to deployment of military troops nor protect citizens from dying cheaply and needlessly in the hands of a cocktail of violent vagrants. We are particularly worried that the incessant attacks by insurgents, bandits, kidnappers, and others across the country can only worsen the general feeling of insecurity with dire implications for our democracy. We believe that this culture of impunity persists because the relevant security agencies have not succeeded in apprehending the entrepreneurs of violence to bring them to justice.
The authorities must see the growing violence in different theatres across Nigeria as a challenge not only to our corporate existence and our imperfect democracy but also to the future of a country that is fast becoming a killing field. The greater danger lies in the fact that as many get killed, as we have witnessed in recent weeks, Nigerians move on unperturbed. That is fast depicting us as a people who place little premium on human lives. Yet when such bestiality becomes a way of life, those who kill would want to recreate the scenes again and again.
Where death becomes an unscheduled consequence of living a normal life, something is fatally wrong with government as the only human invention meant to separate men from beasts. Anarchy or the state of nature is the only other name for a situation in which casual killers compete to take the lives of innocent people almost as a sport. We therefore insist on bringing killers of all hues to justice in an open transparent manner. This will require a complete retraining of our police and security agents to protect lives.
Meanwhile, the essence of June 12 should not be lost on Nigerians. Strictly interpreted, it was more than the date of an election. On that day, as we stated in the past, Nigerians defied faith, ethnicity and nativism to speak with one undivided voice on the choice of national leadership. On a day such as this, we must begin to recreate that spirit. We wish Nigerians happy democracy day!
