On Nigeria’s democracy

“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” This proclamation in George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ attempts to reveal the wall that unravels between democracy and bourgeois politics.

In the ancient Rome, the statue of the ‘Lady Justice’ as in today’s law, represented the peak of justice, her eyes are blindfolded so as not to be biased by what she sees; a set of scale on one hand measures evidence for or against an accused; the sword on the other hand depicts that justice is cut once, it is swift and final.

Today in Nigeria, with the character of our rulers to the law; the disobedience and sheer violation of human rights, the blindfold on Lady Justice has been removed, she now sees who to hate or like before the law. Like the historic subjugation of women, Lady Justice is now stripped and openly raped, her scales now measure justice in terms of influence and political will, and her sword now made to behead justice by her very self. At a point when this symbol of justice is now oppressed, where judges and judgment are no longer valued, what then becomes of this law and democracy? Do we require new definitions or this democracy has always been a charade?

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With the stampede on democracy and rule of law, Nigerians should not only boycott the courts, our lawyers and law students might as well need to burn the wigs and books as signs of protest. Not only democracy is threatened, education too is threatened in fact, the human race is under threat.

To the very conscious ideologues, democracy anywhere in the world is the democracy of the rich. This is because people are oppressed along economic difference, there is no absolute democracy that can be guaranteed with the society polarized between the has and has not; and between the rulers and the ruled. Only the political tolerance differs from regions to regions. The level of tolerance to dissent differs across the globe depending on the level of civilization and people’s radical history.

All over the capitalist globe, the ruling elite and rich class control all the state apparatus, including the courts and armed forces. Around the world, what is left of democracy are the camouflaged freedoms of speech, electoral powers- the people’s votes, rights to associate and others. These limited rights are concessions and soothing relief to manage perpetual unrest from the masses. In Nigeria, nothing even appears to be left. Right to protest is combated with live bullets while right to expression is combated with laws against ‘hate speech’, which potentially makes Nigerians liable to death by hanging.

If we have these kinds of deadly attacks from the state forces, and we have legislators making laws that threaten our lives, combined with the many deaths already caused daily by the economic condition it is not on the high side to conclude we do not even have right to life. The worst of democracy is here.

It is hard to say whether Nigeria is running on democracy or military dictatorship, perhaps what we have is ‘totalitarian democracy’. With such dictates of the Buhari government and the repression of human rights all around the country, defining democracy to our students in school becomes hard because the practice contradicts the theory.

Gbenga Oloniniran,

gbengaoloniniran@gmail.com.

Nigerian Tribune