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What does democracy mean in the Nigerian context?

The word "democracy", just like many English words emanated from the Greek word "demos-kratia", which means "the people rules". The big question is, are we practicing democracy in Nigeria or "demon-crazy" just as Fela alluded to? From political party primaries to local, state, and national elections, what we see is selection, imposition, and rigging of a monumental level. Godfatherism is an integral part of our political system - what is the difference between godfatherism and autocratic military rule? When the wish and will of the people is subverted by a few greedy people who think the rest of us are idiots and stupid, so, they can continue to decide for us. This is a culture that our people learned from the colonial masters but the master never practiced godfatherism like we do because of democracy - they have power brokers and people who lobby, and these people are not perpetual rulers and their power is checked by free and fair election. Many political party primaries in Nigeria are a complete charade and SELECTION instead of ELECTION. Contestants are handpicked, and many times, elections are not held. Where elections are held, participants are gagged or bribed to stupor that they do not exercise their free will. At the state or national level, elections are either rigged or voters are bribed or intimidated from going out to vote or their ballots are stolen or switched with pre-stamped cards, often with the connivance of law enforcement agents. Many times, election officers are bribed to manipulate results in favor of the candidate with the deepest pocket.

How can Nigeria grow and develop when people in office lack integrity, and they are there to represent the interest of those who put them in office or to recover their investment pre-election? Often when business goes sour between godfather and godson, we see a dirty fight in the open - Tinubu vs Fashola, Tinubu vs Ambode, Oshiomole vs Obaseki, Adedibu vs Ladoja, Ngige vs Mba, etc. When will "the people truly rule" in Nigeria, when will many who are thirsty for true change be allowed to vote their conscience and those they think will lead? Until the people stand up say, ENOUGH.

Suffering Nigerians could not have re-elected Buhari in 2019 - the state of the country did not warrant a president like Buhari to be re-elected, but alas, he won miraculously. Nigeria was at one of its lowest period in 2019 when Buhari won again - almost all the promises he made in 2015 were not fulfilled - security and the economy have both gone south - unemployment became double digits under Buhari's watch, Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world with more people living in poverty per capita than any other country on the surface of the earth yet Nigeria is one of the richest countries in the world, insecurity had increased - Boko Haram took more girls including Leah, Fulanis were rampaging everywhere, our external debt that was cleared by OBJ had ballooned to $80 billion under Buhari and they can hardly show what they did with the money, Nigeria had millions of children out of school and the future looked so hopeless - many Nigerian professionals with good jobs left for greener pasture - leaving plum jobs to take menial jobs abroad because of the future of their children. The menace of yahoo-yahoo boys has become rampant with the likes of Hushpuppi and 71 others arrested in the US, disgracing the country because it has become the avatar for criminals. The situation has gone worse since Buhari was re-elected in 2019 and they are not telling you the whole truth. A lot of recent uprising are indications that the bottom is caving under many fake, illegitimate, un-elected, imposed, and rigged governments leading government at various levels in Nigeria. This is the time to save ourselves from complete collapse. While individual Nigerians are breaking new grounds abroad at every facet of life, the home front is a complete "disgrace" and "disaster" if I may borrow Trump's common phrases.

This is what you get when a people cannot choose their leaders. Will we continue this way and think that our fortune will suddenly and miraculously change - far from it. I hear some people say, let us continue to pray - far from it, we should pray and act, that is the sound and complete doctrine of Christ, any other one is heresy. Nigerians, home and abroad need to STAND UP and say ENOUGH! We will not take this anymore. Just as we recently fought the menace of SARS, we need to stand up to fight those who impose themselves on us and do not have us in mind, those who have amassed wealth from our commonwealth while the rest of us suffer in silence.

The bad news is that the petroleum that these people feed on is gone - oil will never sell for $100/barrel again., and the price will remain low for decades to come as humans transition to other energy sources - renewable energy (solar, wind, wave, biofuel, etc.), and gas engines are replaced with electric and hybrid vehicles. What they are doing now is that they are borrowing money from China on bogus projects while filling their pockets and are signing bad loan contracts that are mortgaging the future of generations of unborn. We should not sit down and let this happen to us. The situation can still be salvaged now. If Nigeria continues like this for another 2 or 3 years, Somalia will be a child's play in what may befall the nation. We can see how agitation for regional autonomy has increased in the last one year - autonomy is not the problem of Nigeria but a culture of subverting the democratic process. What will we do about the likes of Tinubu in the South West if the Yorubas broke away from Nigeria - do we think we will develop if his like continue to impose themselves on us and steal public fund and amass wealth in billions of dollars that they cannot say this is how they became so rich.

Nigeria needs true democracy - we need "the people to rule", not a few dubious people.

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