June 12: Democracy in Nigeria now tool to oppress the weak — Rhodes-Vivour

The Labour Party’s (LP) governorship candidate for Lagos State in the 2023 elections, Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, has described Democracy Day as both pretentious and dubious.

He argues that Nigeria cannot truly be considered a democracy when state institutions are manipulated and used as tools to oppress the weak.

In a statement shared on his X handle, Rhodes-Vivour emphasized that a genuine democracy cannot exist when state resources primarily determine the wealth of numerous political figures.

According to the LP chieftain, today’s Democracy Day celebration is not only pretentious but dubious, declaring that this was not exactly what the winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, Chief MKO Abiola, died for, nor the one the nation’s elders imagined.

This was just as he pointedly declared that liberal and constitutional democracies hold the promise of protecting individual rights and civil liberties, adding that true democracies strive to deliver outcomes like economic prosperity and egalitarianism beyond their promise of guaranteeing civil liberties.

“Liberal and constitutional democracies hold the promise of protecting individual rights and civil liberties. Beyond its promise of guaranteeing civil liberties, true democracies strive to deliver outcomes like economic prosperity and egalitarianism.

“Instead of celebrating these virtues and values, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has turned what was a hard-fought democracy into a monarchy where citizens are reduced to subjects—where duty and honour have given way to sycophancy.

“We can no longer claim to live in a democracy when dissent is criminalised or where the judiciary has been greatly compromised.

“What is a democracy where state institutions have become tools to oppress the weak, and where the primary determinant of wealth is proximity to state resources?

“How can we call this a democracy where several villages in the Middle Belt, North East and North West are without state protection, yet the elites drive in convoys accompanied by elite forces? Or where the right to vote is often sabotaged with state-sponsored violence and harassment, ultimately trumping the ultimate will of the people?

“Today’s Democracy Day celebration is not only pretentious but dubious. Because this is not the democracy that Chief MKO Abiola died for, nor the one our elders imagined.

“This experiment is failing, and that failure is being accelerated by the ruling party’s utter disregard for the rule of law and their parasitic appetite to amass and accumulate at the detriment of the people.,” Rhodes-Vivour said.

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