Nigeria embraced Democracy in the year 1999 when General Abdulsalam Abubakar handed over power to Former General Olusegun Obasanjo and since then, Nigeria has been one of the many nations that practice democracy.
As beautiful as Democracy was portrayed to be, the reality is that we have not fully enjoyed all it was proclaimed to be.
*Democracy was popularized by late Albert Venn .Dicey who was a British Jusist and constitutional theorist, well known for his writings on the rule of law.
He proposed a system of government in which the people had freedom of choice while the chosen leaders were accountable to the people. He put it this way..
”Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
As beautiful as this theory sounds, it has never really been fully actualized nor has it been of much help to the people's wellbeing. I feel like Democracy is a shell that hides other hideous forms of government like Monarchy and Oligarchy.
I used these two government systems because they are the most prevalent. In my country, political seats are kept and reserved for their kin. This therefore only allows a few elite people to be at the helm of power even when there are many cotizens who can do a much better job as leaders.
Democratic government might be the government by the people as citizens are allowed to vote for their so called ”choice candidates” but with the expert rigging techniques and hiking of voter counts done right under our noses, all I can say is that it is not a government by the people at all but a goveenneny of the elites.
One substantial fact I have come to understand is that the rule of law on which Democracy stands is no longer what it was. It is now the rule of money, where the rich and wealthy are able to bend rules into their pocket and get away with whatever thing they do.
Democratic government should be a government for the people but it has turned into a government for serving selfish interests instead and the wellbeing of the masses are ignored completely.
When I was younger, I recall that Nigeria was governed by the Military and although the level of freedom enjoyed in Democracy was not there, things worked in order.
I also recall a time in Nigeria, many years ago during the reign of Military rule and many rice merchants hoarded their rice not wanting to sell because they wanted the price of rice to skyrocket. The military government simply issued a decree and military men went to several warehouses, opened it and began to sell rice very cheaply to the people. That occurrence taught the rice merchants a lesson.
Sometimes, I wonder where my country would be if the military were still in power till date but I am grateful for the democratic system of government that we have now. If not for anything, then for the freedom to air my views on certain matters.
Democracy seems to be the most preferred system of government amongst all others but in order to benefit from it, we as a people need to unitely seek for accountability from our leaders. We need to take a stand for ourselves and our future. We need to stop collecting bribes from some government officials, selling our vote to put them into political offices and our judicial system needs to uphold the rule of law as it was meant to be not favouring the strong and bullying the weak but rather allowing justice to prevail to all and sundry.
Thanks for reading.
Images source: Meta Ai
