Back in May 1999, at the dawn of another attempt at democratizing the nation, many Nigerians yearned for a better society one that truly brings the genuine dividends of democracy. 13 years later (the longest period Nigeria has ever been under democracy) it’s debatable whether democracy as practiced by the politicians and understood by the electorate has made significant difference.
Sadly none of those indicators has improved over the last 13 years in Nigeria.
Democracy has not had significant and direct benefit to the people, particularly those at the lower strata of society, for one simple reason. The majority of the office holders and politicians lack genuine social agenda and the aptitude to bring about sustainable changes in the society. Public service is not the motivating factor in Nigerian politics, at least over the last 13 years. The lure of power for personal gains is. And would you agree that this singular factor has contributed in making Nigeria more undemocratic today than 12 years ago?
I decided to simplify the meaning of democracy because Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy at Gettysburg of government of the people, by the people, and, for the people has for ages became obsolete, academics and of no use, as the first question that will throw this Lincoln definition into literary dustbin is which people? Is it the coup plotters parading themselves as born again politician and representatives of the people, or the rag tag militants and kidnappers, fraudulent businessmen and cultists? Who now go about with appellation of born again democrat and the 419 and corrupt government official that use ill gotten money to buy votes and bribe officials? Who are the people? Nigeria can only have democracy when the fundamentals and variables of what makes up democracy are available and regrettably we don’t have such in Nigeria. Rule of Law is far cry in my country irrespective of the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan makes it his every minutes homily. And what did you expect in a country where there is not constitution. Although, in two days time, we may be wishfully and pathetically pretending that we are celebrating 13th year Anniversary of democracy in Nigeria, the question that I am sure that will be agitating our minds is, is Nigeria being run under complete operation of Rule of Law and human rights. About some years ago some cabal imposed on us a decree and termed it constitution and they completed the impurity by lying and spitting on our face that we, Nigerians gave ourselves a constitution, please check it is boldly written there in the very first paragraph of the same constitution, what an impudence to over 200 million people of this country and where lies the rule of law. The world over a constitution comes from the people who make it for the purpose of practice by their government not as we have it in Nigeria where the government make constitution for the people as the government itself is not expected to be fully involved in the formulation of the original constitution which is presume to precede government, let alone approving, enacting and adopting it for the people. Let me use this medium to call on the National Assembly to despite the intentional and fundamental mistake of the origin of our constitution help the country and put Nigeria on right footing doing what the Congress of the United States did when the Congress lean of the flaws and abnormalities of the Confederal Constitution which was adopted in 1778.
Nigeria National Assembly can do this by not wasting a whole 1 Billion Naira in a venture that is bound to fail but make a law that enable Nigerians to give to themselves a Constitution as what legitimizes a Constitution is never its content but the procedure of bringing it about. When we do this then we can now start talking about rule of law which is oppose to the rule of man whims and caprices as is been presently done, where the President can suddenly formulate policy for a whole country on his feet while answering a simple questions without following the law of the land, where international agreement can be jettisoned with colossal consequences, where government agencies and functionaries brazenly flouted laws and courts orders with no consequence. Looking at operation of human rights, can we say such thing exist in Nigeria, the very pointer to this can be picked from our election as human rights guarantee freedom of choice, did average Nigerian has any choice on who leads him, for the past 13 year Nigerians have seen highest degree of subversion of their will, the process of making individual and collective decision has been completely eroded and you want us to pretend that we are celebrating democracy, celebration is showing at happiness something, are we happy, in fact Nigerians are sad of their faith why should it be us. Maybe you should rephrase the question, because the past 12 years is a year of mourning of our unfortunate and inappropriate political system.
Democracy in Nigeria strives on fraud, fraudulent constitution, fraudulent statutes, fraudulent governance, fraudulent fiscal policies, even fraudulent intelligent reports.
The fraud that starts from the fraudulent partitioning of Africa by the British, French and the rest, it is fraud of the days of Sir Goldie and fraudulent charter that lead to the subversion of our wills, please remember the strategic killing of King Jaja of Opobo and other Nationalists and patriots.
All is fraud and it is the only tool used to enrich the few that hold our dear nation on ransom.

Your thoughts…

By: Comrade Aremuforyouths