The Nigerian democratic enjoy seems most powerful in its vocabulary and weakest in its enforcement, argues FOLU OLAMITI
Democracy got here beneath looking scrutiny on Thursday 24 September 2026 as editors, attorneys and public intellectuals amassed in Enugu for the hole of the twenty second All Nigeria Editors Convention, the place issues over elections, the courts, political impunity and the way forward for Nigeria’s democratic challenge ruled the dialog.
The convention, themed “The Poll, the Media and the Activity of Conserving Democracy Alive,” opened with a sobering exam of the establishments which might be anticipated to offer protection to the integrity of the poll and, in the long run, the legitimacy of presidency.
The primary main paper, “Election Petitions within the Virtual Age: Independence, Proof, BVAS and the Courts,” used to be delivered through Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, who introduced an in depth review of the increasingly more advanced dating between generation, election disputes and judicial intervention.
Osigwe’s presentation did greater than read about the technical dimensions of election petitions. His observations touched the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee, the judiciary and the voters, hanging every throughout the wider duty of shielding the credibility of elections
Then got here Professor Pat Utomi.
His intervention used to be transient however unsettling. Utomi warned that the democratic promise Nigerians as soon as appeared upon as an Eldorado used to be regularly disappearing sooner than their eyes. His remarks carried a way of urgency that went past the convention corridor, prompting an uncomfortable query: “what occurs to a democracy when the establishments designed to offer protection to it lose the arrogance of the folks?”
For me, his phrases evoked a reminiscence from some other Nigeria – and the voice of Leader Obafemi Awolowo.
In 1983, all over the electioneering marketing campaign in Sokoto, I had the privilege of being with Awolowo at lunch when a radio bulletin interrupted the collection.
It used to be the 4 p.m. Community Information on Radio Nigeria. The record advised that the most productive candidate would no longer win the election. Awolowo, then some of the outstanding presidential applicants, used to be broadly noticed as the most obvious goal of the message.
There used to be no visual anger. As a substitute, Papa Awo listened and pushed aside the record with a feature calmness.
“What a humorous information,” he mentioned. However what adopted used to be extra profound. His fear, he defined, used to be no longer simply whether or not he would win or lose an election. His concern used to be what such an result would imply for Nigeria’s democratic order. “I will forsee disrespect for the rule of thumb of regulation whilst impunity reigns. Nigerians might for lengthy overlook true which means of democracy”.
The ones phrases returned to me in Enugu.
Greater than 4 a long time later, the query is not whether or not democracy can continue to exist with out the rule of thumb of regulation. The query is whether or not Nigerians have allowed the language of democracy to stay whilst its crucial establishments are often weakened.
Nigeria changed into impartial from Britain 66 years in the past. But the rustic’s democratic adventure has been interrupted many times through army coups, constitutional suspensions and classes of authoritarian rule.
The army didn’t simply take energy from elected governments. It suspended constitutions, dominated through decree and adjusted the institutional structure of the rustic.
Democracy changed into, in impact, a baton handed from one army regime to some other via coups, sooner than ultimately returning to civilian palms.
However the go back to civilian rule didn’t routinely finish the tradition of impunity that army rule had helped entrench.
One of the behavior survived the uniforms.
The overdue President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua perceived to recognise the chance. His management used to be related to a more potent emphasis on constitutionalism and recognize for the rule of thumb of regulation. However the political pursuits that had benefited from the outdated order proved tough to dislodge.
His presidency used to be reduce brief through sickness and dying, leaving a lot of that reform time table unfinished. Next administrations have confronted the similar problem: how you can construct establishments robust sufficient to withstand political drive and be sure that energy stays matter to regulation.
That problem stays unresolved.
These days, the Nigerian democratic enjoy incessantly seems most powerful in its vocabulary and weakest in its enforcement.
Elections are held. Political events compete. Governments are inaugurated. Legislatures sit down and courts factor judgments.
But democracy is greater than the periodic ritual of balloting. It calls for establishments that may say no to energy. It calls for elections by which voters imagine their votes topic.
It calls for political events by which interior democracy isn’t simply a slogan.
It calls for courts whose independence is depended on through each winners and losers.
And it calls for a media able to scrutinising those that workout public energy with out concern or favour.
That is the place the theme of the Enugu convention turns into specifically important.
The media can not stay democracy alive simply through reporting election effects. Its duty extends to interrogating the processes through which the ones effects are produced, the establishments that certify them and the behavior of those that wield energy after victory.
Editors subsequently occupy a hard place.
They should record with out changing into political actors; examine with out changing into tools in political battles; and dangle energy to account whilst subjecting their very own assumptions and resources to the similar scrutiny demanded of public officers.
The poll is the place to begin, no longer the vacation spot.If voters vote however their votes are therefore undermined through manipulation, susceptible establishments, opaque processes or impunity, democracy turns into a shell.
And if those that violate public consider can merely exchange political colors, sign up for the dominant birthday celebration and emerge politically rehabilitated, duty turns into little greater than theatre.
The deeper risk isn’t that democracy disappears in a single day. It’s that voters regularly change into acquainted with its erosion.
That can were the caution embedded in Utomi’s intervention – and possibly the rationale Awolowo’s phrases from 1983 nonetheless resonate.
A democracy does no longer die handiest when infantrymen clutch energy. It could possibly additionally wither when the rule of thumb of regulation turns into selective, when establishments change into subordinate to political pursuits and when voters stop to imagine that the poll can produce significant exchange.
The twenty second All Nigeria Editors Convention has subsequently opened with a query greater than the mechanics of elections. It has positioned Nigerian democracy itself on trial.
The decision, in the long run, might not be delivered through the editors amassed in Enugu. It is going to be written through the behavior of political leaders, the independence of establishments, the braveness of the media, the vigilance of voters – and the willingness of the rustic to select the rule of thumb of regulation over the ease of impunity.
Olamiti is a Fellow, Nigerian Guild of Editors