By EMEKA ALEX DURU, Ph.D

Make no mistakes about it; democracy is not a sure bet for emergence of good leaders. It is also not a guarantee for good governance. But it allows the electorate a voice on how they are governed and grants them the freedom of choice and participation in the affairs of the state, at least, ideally.

It is this people-content that separates democracy from other forms of government. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was therefore right in defining democracy as the government of the people, for the people, by the people. Take away the people-factor, it is no longer democracy, no matter how benevolent it may seem. A system that is shorn of democracy, is an aberration. But then, democracy, if not properly managed and protected by the relevant checks, can be abused by even elected leaders. This is part of the reasons why every Nigerian must ensure that the current democracy in the land, is not truncated.

It is equally why Nigerians must be vigilant on the creeping designs by desperate individuals and interest groups at putting the current democracy under threats. In this disturbing trend, the three arms of the government; the executive, legislature and judiciary – incidentally, the touted guardrails of democracy - are complicit. They have accomplices in corrupt politicians, misguided ethnic, religious bigots and other unpatriotic citizens.

You will then understand why the surreptitious moves by the administration of President Bola Tinubu and ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to compromise the 2027 general election and by extension, truncate the democracy in the country, must be watched. The agenda at the malfeasance has been steady and unrelenting, commencing with capturing the electoral umpire, the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC), blackmailing or coercing elected officials at state and national levels to dump their original political platforms and cross over to the APC. The result is that 34 out of the 36 states of the federation are openly adopting the President’s re-election in 2027, with the remaining two, in tacit alliance.

When therefore you notice such nouveau riche as Emeka Okonkwo (E-Money), Obinna Iyiegbu (Obi Cubana), Pascal Okechukwu, (Cubana Chief Priest), Cletus Uzoezie Oragwa (Zenco) and others in the so-called City Boy Movement prancing about and literally seizing social media spaces for the President, it is in line with the script. From his corner, Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma, adds to the drive with his Renewed Hope Ambassadors, with mandate to rake in politicians from opposition groups, applying diplomacy and subtle threats.

There have also been crude efforts at causing confusion in the opposition camps and putting them in disarray. It is in this regard that former Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, is acting the spoiler in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), while Julius Abure, is the point man in Labour Party (LP). Nafiu Gombe, is doing similar odd job in the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

To consolidate the devious scheme, the judiciary is being drawn into the fray. The recent ruling by a Federal High Court in Lokoja, Kogi State, in favour of an amorphous group, Peace Movement Party (PMP), reversing an earlier order directing the INEC to register the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) as a political party, falls into the arrangement.

To understand the gameplan, Harvard University political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their publication titled, How Democracies Die, summarise the unfolding antics as parts of how leaders can subvert the democratic process to increase their power. They apply soccer game for illustration. In it, according to the authors, power mongers compromise the referee, sideline at least some of other’s star players and rewrite the rules of the game to lock in their advantage. The institutions that are readily targeted, include the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and other regulatory bodies, that are ordinarily supposed to be neutral arbiters. “Capturing the referees provides the government with more than a shield”, they note. Nigeria’s democratic experiment under Tinubu fits into the scenes in the book. In the frenzy to remain in power, the administration and its supporters have undermined all known institutions of democracy in the land and have trampled on the opposition.

Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the NDC, is the main target of attacks. To be sure, Obi is not a small fry in contemporary Nigeria’s politics. From his days as Anambra State governor, where he left outstanding legacies in good governance, to his aspiration for the presidency in the 2023 election under Labour Party (LP) in which he broke the tradition of name-calling and ran a campaign that focused on challenges facing the citizenry and how to tackle them, Obi has come across as a new face of Nigerian politics. For his audacity in doing so, for the nationwide reception which his brand of politics has earned him among the downtrodden, he has become a figure to watch in 2027. Tinubu and his supporters are not taking kindly to the Obi phenomenon, knowing that the government has performed woefully and does not stand any chance of reelection in any free and fair poll. To bring down Obi, is therefore a task that must be accomplished by the foot soldiers of the presidency.

This accounts for the barrage of attacks on him over issues that ordinarily should not matter. When, for example, garrulous presidential aides, Reno Omokiri, Daniel Bwala boasted that Obi would not be on the ballot in 2027, they were unconsciously letting out a plot being incubated in the presidency. This is, perhaps, where the significance of the order by the Federal High Court in Lokoja strikes deeply.

There have, of course, been occasions when the judiciary acted a willing tool in subverting democracy. Recall the instance of Justice Egbo-Egbo, an Abuja High Court Judge, who, on Tuesday, July 22, 2003, granted an ex-parte order restraining former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chris Ngige, from acting or carrying out his job as governor, and ordered that his deputy, Okey Ude should take over as governor. The Judge was alleged to have acted at the prompting of the then godfather of Anambra politics, Chris Uba, Okey Ude, and Mrs. Eucharia Azodo, the former Speaker of the state House of Assembly, who were fingered in a failed abduction bid of Ngige. For that ignoble act and others, Egbo-Egbo was compulsorily retired from office in January 2004 by the National Judicial Council (NJC). But the damage he brought to the institution remains.

Recall also that the intrigues that eventually led to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections, had commenced with fleeting demands by a nondescript organization, Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), headed by Senator Arthur Nzeribe and his acolyte, Abimbola Davis, on the then military president, Ibrahim Babangida to extend the political transition timetable of his government. Nzeribe and his cohorts were initially ignored by Nigerians as mere rabble rousers. But by the time the enormity of their scheme had been appreciated, they had procured a controversial midnight court injunction, from Justice Bassey Ikpeme, that Babangida latched on to annul the election. Babangida however ended up playing himself out of contention, following massive reactions by Nigerians over the dastardly act.

These instances should serve enough lessons to Nigerians on agenda of the opportunistic rulers in the days ahead. For now, sponsored attacks and coordinated efforts at blocking Peter Obi from running in 2027, may just be issues on the table. There could be other devious plots that may truncate the democracy in the country, if Nigerians keep watching and assuming that all is well.

•Emeka Alex Duru, Ph.D., is the Editor, TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos.

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