The only item of public interest in President Bola Tinubu's Democracy Day 2024 speech was the steady move towards enacting a new national minimum wage law. The rest was mere run-of-the-mill.
It contained very little of the challenges that our democracy faces and efforts to tackle them. The most outstanding of these is the controversy the last general elections provoked. It dashed what remained of the hope of the average Nigerians in their ability to choose their leaders and get justice in the Judiciary.
A new INEC Chairman is due for appointment next year. We will still be stuck in the dilemma whereby a player in a football match will still have the power to appoint the referee. So long as a president continues to appoint the INEC Chairman, National Commissioners and State Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, we can never have free and fair elections. Ruling party stalwarts will continue to be appointed into the INEC.
We urgently need comprehensive reforms of INEC, the Judiciary and our electoral laws. In his speech, President Tinubu correctly identified himself as one of the soldiers for democracy some 25 years ago. The question is: has he continued in that light since he became a full-fledged politician? Has he lived up to the ideals which he demanded as an activist?
Never in the 25 years of our renascent democracy have we witnessed the quantum of impunities such as abductions and brutalisation of journalists and other citizens as in Tinubu's first year in office. Journalists are now abducted and detained for alleged offences that could easily have been treated under extant laws.
This was the kind of power show that the infamous Frank Omenka of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, DMI, visited on journalists and citizens under General Sani Abacha. It is highly disappointing that we should go through such ugly experiences under the watch of a respected pro-democracy activist. The military and police have become too visible in the dehumanisation of the citizenry for comfort. This must stop.
Also, democracy is nothing if it has no dividends for the people. Apart from greater civil liberties, life should be more abundant. Yet, we have never had it so bad as in the past year.
President Tinubu must walk his talk.
