This week, under the leadership of the Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, civil society groups and some development partners convened a conference attended by leading politicians, pro-democracy activists and academics to address rising threats to the democratic order and the role we should play in trying to sustain it. Also, this week, three ECOWAS countries – Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso left ECOWAS because of its opposition to the coup they had implemented to overthrow the democratic regimes in their countries replacing it with an authoritarian military rule that has been attacking and subverting the utility of democracy in our region. At the global level, extreme right-wing parties committed to undermining democracy and supporting authoritarian and arbitrary rule are coming into power and the emergence of Donald Trump as the American President is boosting their prospects of generating support for their agenda of undermining democracy and supporting fascism.
In Nigeria, as political parties and citizens prepare for the 2027 elections, concerns are growing about rising evidence that democratic norms are being undermined and processes subverted. The spirit of the conference was that democracy needs believers and defenders and the time has come for them to begin serious mobilisation to ensure that democracy survives. One of the most concerning issues about the threat to democracy is the significant increase in electoral fraud. How many times have we seen cases of returning officers forced to declare fake election results at gunpoint and the judiciary has validated the criminal action.
Over the past decade, vote buying has become a major threat to the democratic system as politicians steal massively from the public purse and use the proceeds to undermine democratic mandate by exploiting mass poverty and depriving citizens of the possibility of using their ballot to sanction non-performing elected officials. As they turn the ballot into a vulgar commercial commodity, the edifice of democracy is crumbling as people give four years of power for a tiny amount of money that might not even buy them a full meal. As they steal more, the political class is getting even more arrogant as they assert that what money cannot buy, more money can buy. The danger of transforming the vote into a commodity is that citizens become apathetic about democratic processes and box themselves into accepting the “reality” that the monetary offer is small but is better than nothing. Our responsibility is to get them to understand that using their vote correctly is what can give them a lot of power and begin to transform governance into an activity that improves the welfare of ordinary citizens.
One of the most serious threats to democracy is that it is becoming clear that many judges are ready and indeed eager to deliver “Jankara” judgements based on receiving bribes. When justice is for sale to the highest bidder and their contradictory judgements are a constant affront to truth, character and justice, the people can give up hope. This adds to growing political apathy. There is a growing disconnect between the lives of Nigerians and the reality of the political class. The stories Nigerians are talking about today are about their lived reality of deepening poverty, widening inequality, growing insecurity, massive unemployment, and poor healthcare and education services. At the same time, Nigerians are also witnessing the coercion of or buying off of the media and the shrinking of civic space. In other words, Nigerians are shocked at the realisation that the dividends of democracy are only for the political class and not for the people.
Regular readers of this column would be aware that I often say that in 2011, a positive narrative on Nigeria’s democracy emerged. There has been a significant improvement in the integrity of our elections and the massive fraud that accompanied 2003 and 2007 have not recurred. Democratic culture has been developing in a steady, even if uneven manner and citizens’ capacity for mandate protection, in particular, has grown considerably. I often tell this story to young Nigerians and they think I am delusional because they do not see what I see. Let us not forget that they did not see the 2003 and 2007 elections, so there should be no surprise when they assert categorically that 2023 is the worst election in Nigeria’s history. In other words, we are unable to write a consensual history of successive elections. The greatest threat to democracy might well be that young Nigerians are unwilling to unable to see that democracy can be sustained.
I have repeatedly made the point that the main challenge to democratic development is the political party system which has refused to accept the practice of internal party democracy and remains locked into a logic of serving the interests of godfathers and party barons rather than party members and citizens. The result is that they have for the most part jettisoned the popularity principle that pushes parties to seek for the most popular candidates to enhance their chances of their victory at the polls. Their non-challant attitude is based on the capacity to determine electoral outcomes through non-democratic means. Victory at the polls is often determined by money, thuggery and collusion of officials from the electoral management body and/or security agencies. In other words, it is grounded in a deep culture of electoral fraud which makes nonsense of the vote. This culture has persisted even when the integrity of the electoral process began to improve in 2011. The main change was that monies previously used to bribe officials were then used to directly bribe the voters themselves.
My view is that democracy is in its essence a good and resilient system because it’s a normative system people value for its positive content – political and human rights, civil liberties, participation, equality, rule of law and so on. For this reason, there are always demands for democracy and when countries move away from it, struggles for its return emerge. This is the crux of the matter. What is Nigeria’s pathway to democratic reform? What is the outlook for democratic resilience in Nigeria over the next decade? Maybe it might not be as bright as it should be. A core challenge has arisen in the form of reckless and rising levels of corruption by the political class that is making governance impossible. Even the country’s main source of revenue, petroleum, is stolen and Nigeria is finding it difficult to generate sufficient revenue to carry out our governmental tasks. It is getting worse. Increasingly, even the revenue that is available is being stolen by reckless officeholders.
Kleptocracy is making governance impossible as monies for security, the provision of social services and the construction of infrastructure projects are stolen and governance is grinding to a halt. At the same time, current economic policies have created an unprecedented cost of living crisis at the same time that agriculture is becoming impossible due to rural insecurity. There is therefore a real risk of popular revolt and system collapse that could dismantle democracy and the political system. This is the outcome that all people of goodwill should play a role in avoiding.
The desired outcome for Nigeria is a change of gear in which the governing class wakes up to its sense of enlightened self-interest and takes the war against corruption seriously so that public resources can henceforth be used for the public good. This would create a new situation in which respect for democratic principles and practices return and confidence in the system grows. Fat chance this would happen. The alternative is a significant mobilisation to carry out electoral reforms that could return the country to the straight and narrow path.
