Measuring The Health Of Our Democracy

Eze Onyekpere

How healthy is our democracy? Are powers being concentrated in the hands of a few men and women? Can Nigeria be said to be fully observing the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens and residents in the country? Can we be said to be a country governed under the rule of law? How many court orders, rulings and judgements have the executive thrown into the dustbin? So many questions which can be dispassionately answered by evidence.

The starting point is to recall the court orders for the release on bail of many prominent detainees which have been disobeyed by the executive, with President Muhammadu Buhari and the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, justifying disobedience to court orders. The notorious cases of Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and Sambo Dasuki stand out like a sore thumb. Now, the Omoyele Sowore case is unveiling like a nightmare before our very eyes. It should be further recalled that the Attorney General of the Federation during his screening after the expiry of his first term justified disobedience to court orders before the Senate, being the body constitutionally mandated to screen ministerial nominees to determine their suitability for appointment as ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Senate, by clearing Malami after that heresy and show of shame, has become complicit in the gross violation of rights that has happened under his watch. Clearly, the executive is not in a position to determine, pick and choose which court orders to obey. Any democracy where the executive is the ultimate decider of matters submitted to the judiciary for its decision is clearly lawless.

Dictatorship, abuse of human rights and an unhealthy democracy do not simply manifest in a day. They start gradually, through small and innocuous developments before they become full-blown. The popular impression out there among Nigerians is that the legislature may have become more or less a rubber stamp. The body language, background and utterances of the leadership of the legislature do not inspire confidence in the robustness of the legislature and its ability to stand up for the rights of Nigerians in the event of executive-led violations. Nigerians await to be proved wrong by the legislature. The judiciary has apparently been conquered after the arbitrary and illegal removal of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen. The rules of engagement and discipline of judges by the National Judicial Council were turned upside down to allow for the ascension to power of the incumbent Chief Justice of Nigeria.

Now, the legislature is going headlong to gag the social media after the print and electronic media have come under attack. The social media is evidently a free space where Nigerians ultimately and at little or no cost,manifest their freedom of expression, with opinions which they are constitutionally entitled to hold. Recall the social media regulation bill was presented before the National Assembly in the Eighth Senate but did not cross the legislative hurdles as it was thrown out. What has changed between that time and now? Nothing in favour of the gag on the social media. Rather, the current situation is leaning towards expanding the space for social media because the conventional media is coming under greater restrictions. It is convenient for the authorities to argue about abuse and violations emanating from the social media, but Nigeria has a surfeit of laws on remedies to persons and institutions that feel defamed or their rights violated by the utterances of others. It makes no sense for government to try to control people’s utterances and their thought processes.

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In the midst of all the challenges facing the country, the authorities that have gone for the throat of social media users are now thinking of bringing back the infamous bill to strangulate the activities of non- governmental organisations. Recall that in previous attempts, the government sought to create an agency whose duty would inter alia include registration of the NGOs after the Corporate Affairs Commission registration, approve their workplans, vet proposals that had already been approved by donors and decide whether it is in the nebulous national interest for the projects to go ahead. The agency also had powers to arbitrarily deregister the NGOs and take all manner of capricious and unimaginable actions against the NGOs that it determines are not working in the national interest. Incidentally, nowhere was national interest defined in that infamous bill.

Pray,what is the interest of the executive in controlling the activities of the NGOs? First, the NGOs are under obligation to register with the CAC. They file annual returns, audit their accounts and give reports to their donors. And the donors have contracts and agreements with them which entitle them to come for investigations and order special audits if they are not satisfied with financial and narrative reports. Such agreements entitle them to seek refunds if their funds are mismanaged or even report the offending groups and their leaders to law enforcement agencies for possible prosecution. So, what is the value proposition of this new attempt at regulating the NGOs? What is the national interest beyond the attempt to control all segments of society while leaving statutory executive functions and duties unfulfilled?

This discourse had taken time to list out issues that promote arbitrariness and undue challenges to the rule of law and democracy. When the executive virtually controls other arms of governments, seeks to gag the social media while attempting to put the NGOs under undue check, such a society is on the brink of full-blown dictatorship and the citizens need to be concerned. Nigerians need to be concerned about the health of their democracy and take actions to check elected officials in the executive and legislature and hold them accountable. Democracy is a people’s work in action. Citizens do not go to sleep after elections. Otherwise, they will sooner than later find themselves in chains.