1. When you see your fellow citizens start wearing clothings bearing your images.

2. When you start taking gossips as fact.

3. When you start collecting awards, titles like trophies.

4. Whenever those around you start telling you that you are God sent, annoited and musicians start singing your name in their song as the only messiah.

5. When you start getting paranoid about being out of power.

6. When your wife start to run some pet projects or even a parallel government of her own.

7. Whenever you noticed that everything you said to your aids ends with yes Sir in reply and some start referring you as daddy, papa, baba and your wife as mummy.

8. Whenever you start being suspicious of everybody.

9. Whenever you start feeling that the constitution was wrong or badly written and needs rewriting by you.

10. You start to prefer the Chinese and Russia as best partners and blame the West for everything.

11. You loved big military parades and synchronize matching by school kids and celebrate just about every event.

12. You hated criticism and any sort of opposition.

13. You cannot separate what is private and what is States.
14. Your spokespersons start to act as if they love you more than their mother.

15. Economic forecast over inflation became a Western propaganda.

16. You and your wife's penchant of exuberant luxury in the midst of poverty.

17. You start seeing bad rulers as heroes and court their friendship.

18. Military spending geared towards appeasing their higher hierarchy quadruples that of social spending.

19. The word treason follows every varied opinion of disapproval.

20. All the State owned media become all about you. Your personal images is all over the place on billboards, offices and monuments.

Can you recall any? These are few characteristic of mainly African dictators.

whenever you start smoking weed

harrysterol:
whenever you start smoking weed

That's a good one. Abacha always seem to be on substance with his dark goggle.

I smell Jona

21.When you come here and write GEJ till 2019.
22.When you Blame your failure on APC.
23.When you see Nigeria sinking you still intend to note JEG.

When you invade state legislatures with thugs.
When your uncontrollable wife disgraces you in front of the entire inhabitants of the planet.
When you meet $3bn debt in office and you increase it to $39B-) in just six years.
When you invade the national assembly with police and lock out 2/3rds of the legislators.
When your generals are stealing and you are too scared to act.

If I add mine #AmericaWillKnow.

Eziachi, saying it as is as always

This was a discussion I had many many years ago with a Pakistani born Canadian colleague when Zia Ul Haq was in power, which I have noticed in mainly African dictators like Mugabe. Nothing do with any particular individual ruler. Just my indexes of what to see When a ruler is turning into a dictator.

Interest registered

...when you desecrate the alter of democracy through military coup

Ano'm Here!!!

When you jail individuals through kangaroo courts and jail them for 100 years

Descartes:
...when you desecrate the alter of democracy through military coup

Good one. Almost all the current Nigeria so called democrats have in many ways worked with the junta in the years past as ministers, commissioners, contractors etc.
Good point.

Eziachi:

Good one. Almost all the current Nigeria so called democrats have in many ways worked with the junta in the years past as ministers, commissioners, contractors etc.
Good point.

You're very right Sir.

This is very applicable in everyday life; offices, homes, businesses, etc.