Nigerian democracy is in the doldrums again. And it is incumbent on all Nigerians to reflect on where we are coming from, and where we might be heading once again. We are coming from at least a relatively good place. The 2023 general election was the most competitive since 1979, producing the most diverse outcomes in Nigerian electoral history since we adopted the presidential system more than 45 years ago.

For example, in 2003 and 2007, the votes of the winning candidates in the presidential election were more than double those of their nearest challengers. In 2023, however, the winner, current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, polled just 36.61 per cent of the votes, followed closely by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar with 29.07 per cent, and former Governor of Anambra State Peter Obi with 25.40 per cent. Moreover, five additional opposition political parties took a total of 70 National Assembly seats, where previously two parties dominated the field.

Keen contests and diverse electoral outcomes are all evidence of a deepening democracy, which should be further strengthened as we draw closer to the next election in 2027. Alas! Barely 18 months after the last election, are we left with warning signs that Nigeria’s democracy is receding. And all under a president whose democratic credentials have been touted loudly for more than 25 years.

Consider, for starters, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The APC is conducting its business in ways that are severely shy of democratic tenets. For example, Article 25 of the APC Constitution states that the “National Convention of the Party shall be held once in Two (2) years”. The last such convention was held in March 2022, well more than two years ago. Why should a ruling party be afraid of holding a national convention according to its own constitution?

Moreover, Article 20 of the same APC Constitution states that “all Party posts prescribed or implied by this Constitution shall be filled by democratically conducted elections”. Yet, this was not the case with the emergence of the current National Chairman of the APC, Dr Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, who came to office in August 2023. Equally important, as former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, pointed out recently, organs of the party such as the National Executive Committee, the National Caucus, etc., have not held a single meeting in more than two years.

APC party faithful may argue that all these issues are strictly internal affairs of the party. They would be wrong. Issues of internal democracy within a political party in Nigeria are issues of Nigerian democracy at large, not just of the party concerned. In a democracy, all questions of democratic principle and practice within a political party are also at once questions for everyone else.

Our view is that meetings, conventions, and elections are the chief mechanisms by which equal participation is assured in a democracy. They may be inconvenient for power holders, but they are also the primary difference between democracies from autocracies.

Still, if the ruling APC’s business is conducted severely short of democratic expectations, the leading opposition political parties are even worse. In Nigeria today, there are effectively no opposition parties fit the name; only opposition political figures. This is not the vision of the Nigerian Constitution. We are aware of the rumours that leading opposition parties like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) have been hijacked by paid agents of the ruling APC.

As a newspaper, however, we do not deal in cheap wares like rumours and hearsay. What we do know is that the Nigerian Constitution envisages that opposition political parties would do the serious and important job of holding the government to account on behalf of Nigerians and present voters with alternative visions of society, both in politics and policy. The deeply factionalised state of our opposition parties makes this constitutional role nearly impossible presently. Daily Trust, therefore, implores Nigeria’s opposition parties to get their acts together and do their jobs of holding the government to account, for Nigeria, whether in terms of politics or policy.

Furthermore, we are deeply concerned by the body language of the National Assembly. The legislature, we must remind our senators and representatives, is the rightful heir to democratic governance and a co-equal branch of government, without which there can be no democracy. It is the supreme bastion of checks and balances, of oversight over executive action, and above all, the voice of the people.

The perception persists among many Nigerians, however, that the current National Assembly is worse than a rubber stamp: all too eager to please the executive than take the side of Nigerians who elected them. We urge all National Assembly members, particularly the leadership, to rise to the demands of the Nigerian Constitution and to look themselves in the mirror and decide whether they wish to go down in history with the perception of being a lapdog, rather than the watchdog, of executive power.

And finally, beyond politics and government proper, we are concerned with the deteriorating relations between the state, on the one hand, and media and civil society on the other. We note that no less than 10 journalists were arrested, detained, or otherwise interrogated by various security agencies within the first 12 months of this administration alone. That is a record of its own; even in Nigeria, the state has a long history of brutal suppression of the media.

This is in addition to a growing list of citizens who have been arrested, detained, or questioned by security agencies for what many Nigerians believe is nothing other than their political speech. And in Kano, the fear of police action still hangs over the air about an emirate tussle that remains unresolved to date.

All of these developments portend grave dangers for Nigeria’s developing democracy at present. More importantly, we are worried that they are happening under a president who had a track record of struggle for democracy. We therefore call on all involved, particularly President Tinubu, to rethink this situation and work the system as the Nigerian constitution envisioned. Governments may come and go, but our democracy must remain.