President Tinubu’s Democracy Day speech highlights Nigeria’s civilian rule, but critics argue the system fosters…

In his Democracy Day Speech, Friday, June 12, 2026, President Bola Tinubu observed that “for 27 unbroken years… Nigerians have chosen their leaders through the ballot box, witnessed peaceful transitions of power, and resolved disagreements in courtrooms and legislative chambers—not through violence”.

When he added, “We have experienced the longest stretch of civilian rule in our history,” and that “Our democracy is not perfect, but… we must … strengthen it,” and that “we have a duty to… deepen the democratic institutions for which (our heroes) fought,” he struck a chord.

The ghost of the argument that Nigeria was running a “civilian tyranny” and not a “democratic” system rang through, revealing several pointers that those in Nigeria’s politics are acting like predators who have captured the state and now run it to the exclusion of the citizens.

His admonishment, “The greatest tribute we can pay (to our heroes past) is to build a Nigeria where freedom is protected, justice is upheld, opportunity is expanded, and government is accountable,” should have been addressed to the political elite who have inflicted several years of neglect, mismatched policies and larceny, and not to Nigerians.

When you ask, “How much freedom does the average Nigerian have, how much justice can he get from the law courts, to what extent is the Nigerian without connection enjoying inclusivity, and which state actor acts as if he is accountable to Nigerians,” you are not likely to get a positive response.

The Nigerian state has been held captive by a cavalier and buccaneer political elite that rides roughshod on the civilian masses, almost with the belief that no one, and certainly not the system, can audit or indict their actions.

Each day, they betray the notion, or article of faith, that any politician or political party that has the privilege of appointing the chairman, directors and State Resident Electoral Commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission has a lock on who gets elected into any political office.

When you remember that politicians in power also appoint all judicial officers, including the Chief Justice of Nigeria, who is also the chairman of the Nigerian Judicial Council that has the authority to discipline judicial officers, you will see how helpless the citizens have become in the face of the power and greed of the politicians.

By appointing INEC and judicial officers, the “lucky” political elite effectively takes away the freedom of the people to choose their leaders, compromises the judicial system, and excludes the citizens from power and economic opportunities.

This reminds one of Brutus, who observes in the Shakespearean tragedy, Julius Caesar, that “Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder. Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; but when he once attains the utmost round, he then unto the ladder turns his back. Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend.”

As he spoke about the approaching governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states of South-West Nigeria, the President may have been alluding to the real McCoy, the 2027 general elections, when he urged, “INEC, security agencies, and all parties to ensure these polls are peaceful and credible.”

With the way the political elite and their special-purpose vehicle political parties are conducting themselves, Nigerians cannot be too sure that all is well with democracy in Nigeria. All they know is that “civilian potentates,” and not the military, are running the show.

While it is true that Nigeria can be said to be running a democracy because elections are held periodically and regularly every four years, Nigerians still cannot boast that the candidates that occupy electoral offices are their true choices.

Why is that so? Sections 65(2)(b), 106(d), 131(c) and 177(c) insist that one of the conditions by which a Nigerian can be “qualified for election for the office of Federal legislator, state legislator, President and Governor respectively is for him to be a member of a political party and is sponsored by that political party.”

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It is not necessary to point out that this political vice lock that imperiously pronounces that any Nigerian who wishes to run for any political office must kowtow to the denizens of a political party is tyrannical, unjust and unfair.

With this constitution, there is no room for independent candidates to call the bluff of political party chieftains. There’s no doubt that this provision effectively reduces citizens’ access to political power and is a clear compromise of democratic values.

If President Tinubu and the rest of the class of political elite truly wish to expand access to political power, maybe they should jettison this limiting clause from the Constitution. If they continue to leave it, they are telling Nigerians that they love it the way it excludes others. And they may not qualify to be described as democrats.

Indeed, a friend and former Editor of Daily Independent on Sunday, Habib Aruna, thinks that since 1999, “politicians who circumvent the electoral process… (and) are not bothered about the frailty of the democratic process,” have been running Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Regrettably.

That is probably why anyone who lost out in political party primaries or even the election conducted by INEC is mischievously asked to go to court. Many of the priests in the temple of justice probably also worship at the feet of their political paymasters, who are also their benefactors.

With the brazen way democracy is being run to compromise the freedom of the people to make political choices in Nigeria, one begins to wonder if indeed “vigilance is the price of liberty,” as Irish lawyer and politician, John Philpot Curran, once said.

To the extent that they have been excluded from political power, and poverty is weaponised against them, Nigerians are preoccupied with existential issues, and anxiously look forward to the “stomach infrastructure” largess that former Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose suggests is a necessary lubricant of the messed-up Nigerian politics.

Today’s political elite not only snatch ballot boxes and procure contrived votes, but they also exploit the poverty of the electorate and induce them by distributing items like bags of rice, cash as small as N5,000, to the poor, and doling out political patronage to the relatively well-to-do lackeys.

A recent submission by former Editor and Managing Director of The Guardian Newspapers, Martins Oloja, probably suggests that the enemy that defeated the actualisation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, said to have been won by Bashorun MKO Abiola, is still working against the germination of the culture of democracy in Nigeria.

But because hope is eternal, Nigerians should neither despair nor give up on the eventual arrival of authentic democracy in their land. But it may never be the lot of the current political class to deliver it to them. Clearly, many of the current crop of politicians have no intention of leaving a legacy of virtues after their sojourn on earth.

They are too invested in themselves and in the short-term returns, which do not endure. Regrettably, there is no iota of altruism in their DNA! But as Nigerians continue to celebrate Democracy Day on June 12 every year, it will continue to tug at the conscience of the renegade politicians.

Indeed, when the political elite eventually sees the light, democracy will be able to flourish in Nigeria.

X:@lekansote1, lekansote.com