Nigerians, in the course of the military interventions that plateaued with General Sani Abacha's iron-fisted rule, fought, gallantly, for the enthronement of democracy. They did so, informed by the need to secure their rights and freedoms, which are inalienable and which are enshrined in our constitution, international laws and international conventions.
Twenty-five years after the return of democracy, we are, unfortunately, witnessing a whittling at the core principles that undergird democracy. We are witnessing a rising democratic distemper and a regression to the fascism we once railed at and fought against.
Not a few journalists have been arrested or hounded, for flimsy excuses, on the watch of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In the course of the #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests, and according to the Press Attack Tracker of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), not less than 30 journalists faced attacks or interferences with their work. This includes incidents of assault, arrest, detention, harassment and confiscation/damage to equipment. A photojournalist has since been declared wanted by the security agencies. And a forceful rendition of an investigative journalist, in exile, to Nigeria was said to have been contemplated.
For the first time since the return of our democracy in 1999, peaceful protests, which are legitimate and go in tandem with the democracy territory and project, have been criminalised with dubious distinction. Scores of protesters were arrested and charged to court. The court is in turn insisting that these protesters can only be bailed subject to the payment of N10 million each.
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, was arrested by the security agencies at the eve of a conference in London.
These developments, put together, represent a clear and present danger to our democracy project. They abridge and truncate the rights and freedoms which are contingent on, and are associated with, a true democracy.
No democracy can thrive in an environment in which journalists cannot report and comment unhindered and untrammeled. Neither can democracy thrive where journalists are harassed and hounded as is increasingly becoming commonplace. Caginess, opaqueness and lack of transparency are antithetical to the democratic ideal.
But worse is criminalising protesters who are peacefully and legitimately expressing their grievances. Apart from the fact that this goes against the grain of democratic ethos, the judiciary has not helped to give robust effect to our democracy. Its insisting that protesters should pay N10 million each to secure bail is simply ludicrous. How does an indigent protester, who took to the streets to register his/her displeasure with poverty and to call attention to the widespread hardship in the land, occasioned by topsy-turvy government policies and bad governance, source such a humongous amount? If he/she had such a colossal sum in the first instance, would he/she have bothered or be incentivised to protest?
Besides, to insist that such protesters pay such out of the world sums to secure bail must approximate to, or be akin to, the bizarre antics of our malevolent terrorists. It is they, in their opioid-induced stupor and extreme wickedness, who abduct poor villagers and farmers and who then proceed to demand ransoms running into hundreds of millions of Naira.
But the worst case scenario must be the cavalier arrest of the NLC President, Comrade Ajaero. Its crudeness and clumsiness are underscored by the fact that it occurred at the cusp of an international conference at which he was to make a presentation. The arrest and seizure of his international passport came hot on the heels of a previous and widely reported invitation by the Police for alleged terrorism financing and his (Comrade Ajaero's) allegation that the government had betrayed Nigerian workers by increasing the price of petrol.
While the presidency claimed the NLC president was arrested because he reportedly snubbed an invitation by security agencies, it is revealing, going by the explanation of Comrade Ajaero, that he was merely plied with the same set of questions that followed his first invitation/interrogation by the Police. If his statement (which is yet to be refuted) is correct, why couldn't the security agencies await his return from the conference before issuing him another invitation or going the whole hog by arresting him? Why did they have to resort to the sadistic and disruptive approach?
If this appears inexplicable and imprudent, a commentator, on one of our popular radio programmes, provided us with a hint. He explained that the invitations, and eventual arrest of the NLC president, were part of a deliberate strategy by the government calibrated to intimidate Labour and to foreclose its further shutdowns of the country.
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Assuming this is a strategy, it must be a dumb and an addle-brained one. In arresting the NLC president, the government has drawn the ire of all Nigerians (who see the NLC as their advocate) and members of the international community. Widely condemned, the arrest only succeeded in casting Nigeria as some banana republic.
It is revolting that these abridgments of our rights and freedoms are taking place in a democratic dispensation and are taking place on the watch of a president who was once in the vanguard of our fight for the enthronement of democracy. Demised members of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) such as Pa Alfred Rewane, Pa Abraham Adesanya, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Air Commodore Dan Suleiman (rtd), Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (rtd) and other pro-democracy activists such as Dr Beko Ransome Kuti, should be in indignation. They must be turning, violently, in their graves.
Nick Dazang is a former director at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
