According to INDEPENDENT, Dr. Femi Okurounmu, a prominent Afenifere leader and elder statesman, has bemoaned the demise of democratic values and characterized Nigeria’s political system as a “quasi-military democracy,” criticizing the current state of democracy under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
In his view, Nigeria has shifted far from the democratic ideals of its First Republic and highlighted that the period between 1960 and 1966 marked a high point for Nigeria’s democratic governance, which followed the British parliamentary system after independence.
He explained that, in those early years, the system was balanced with a recognized opposition in parliament, this opposition provided essential checks on government actions, ensuring accountability, furthermore, political parties were free to select their own candidates and create rules for fair elections.
Comparing that era to the present, Okurounmu criticized the current electoral process, claiming it is largely controlled by powerful forces rather than the people’s choice and expressed concerns that voting now feels more like a mere formality, where the actual decisions lie with officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and government insiders, rather than with Nigerian voters.
“The people are supposed to go to vote, but the voting is most of the time, a complete shame. They go through the motions of voting, but it is not really the choices of the people that count.”
“It is the choice of INEC and the interested people in government. They make us go through these motions of elections, but other people decide for us who the winners are. You cannot call this democracy.”
“What we have today is a Presidential system of government where all powers are vested in one man. All the Executive powers of the state are vested in one man. And if that one man has a tendency for gravity power, it means that we have no institutions in the country. One man who controls the Executive, One man who controls the Legislature. One man who controls the Judiciary. One man who controls the Police. One man who controls INEC.”
“That same man is the one who controls everything. That is the kind of democracy we have today in Nigeria. Is this what you call a democracy?” he said.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
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