Following the death of General Sani Abacha in 1998, his successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, initiated the transition which heralded Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999. The ban on political activities was lifted and political prisoners were released from detention.
A new constitution was drafted and enacted, albeit hurriedly, to usher in a Fourth Republic. Just like the 1979 Constitution, which ushered in the Second Republic, it favoured an American-style presidential system of government.
Subsequently political parties were formed. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) were registered and elections were scheduled for April 1999.
In the widely monitored 1999 election, former military ruler, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was elected as president on the PDP platform. He was sworn in as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in May 1999.
In the controversial general election, which was held on April 22, 2007, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of the PDP was elected president.
Following the death of Yar’Adua on May 5, 2010, the then Vice President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, became the Acting President and held this position till the following year when he was elected president, in an election that was largely acknowledged as the freest since the restoration of democracy in the country.
Jonathan was succeeded by the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari, who won the 2015 presidential election, thus ending the PDP’s political domination of the country which lasted 16 years (1999–2015).
How then has Nigeria fared in its democracy in the last 22 years? Surely, we do not need a soothsayer to tell us that our journey to democracy so far has been riddled with socio-political challenges and seemingly intractable economic problems.
Nigeria is known to practice democracy only in name and not in principle. In the first place, the structure it inherited from the military was a top to bottom approach in which one man at the centre dictates to the federating units that form the ‘ federation’ and those at the helm in the states go cap-in-hand every month to collect their shared resources. The healthy competition that characterised the First Republic is conspicuously absent.
In a typical democratic setting, power evolves from the people in a bottom-to-the top approach to governance. This is hardly the case in the current dispensation, especially with a self-serving political class that habitually turns its back on the electorate after satisfying its desire for votes.
Secondly, most major political players in the country are former military top brass that have not fully embraced authentic democratic principles. The only democratically-elected Presidents that enjoyed the two consecutive terms so far are former military heads of state, Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 – 2007) and the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari (2015 to date). Both Obasanjo and Buhari ruled Nigeria like military dictators. Their wishes and approaches to governance were mostly undemocratic.
In its 22 years of uninterrupted democracy, Nigeria has been troubled by many governance-related problems, often typified by persistent crises experienced before, during and after elections. Instances of this abound from the experiences of the 1999, 2003 and 2007, even the 2015 general elections in the country. The conduct of these past elections was fraught with irregularities such that many wondered if the country could survive the ensuing crises. Fortunately, it did and has continued to do so amid a volatile political climate.
However, the nagging question is how long will the political leadership of this country continue to bastardise democracy and engage in electoral brinkmanship?
Nigerian politicians appear to be more interested in winning elections by any means possible than to build political institutions that will stand the test of time.
We believe the political leadership of the country should not only think of the yearly ritual of celebrating Democracy Day, but also learn to embrace the true ideals of democracy and its way of life as opposed to the arrogance and self-serving attitude exhibited by a majority of the elite.
Twenty-two years is a long time to master the art of democracy. By now, we should all put on our thinking caps and as we celebrate the Democracy Day, we should let it reflect in the way the country is governed.
Constitutionalism is a fundamental requirement of democracy and this should be imbibed as opposed to the present dictatorial tendencies of the ruling class.
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