The Defenders Of Democracy As Its Killers And Undertakers

By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi

SOME years ago, 2016, to be exact, the President of Nigeria , Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared that “we must defend democracy”, in this country, in a statement read for him to a cheering audience in Lagos, during the annual Democracy Day Lecture.

“The quest for Democracy is a BATTLE, not a BANQUET. We must stick with it and not give up hope, until fairness and justice have finally gotten the upper hand. We must persevere until the tide of the battle seems to have turned in our favour, but until the opponents of DEMOCRACY have been DECISIVELY and THOROUGHLY bested”, said Tinubu at the occasion.

THE same Tinubu, who is today (2026) the number one citizen in the country, is quite poles apart with democracy, declaring that whether or not Nigerian citizens want, the new tax law, stands, as GAZETTED by him by fiat.

AND all institutions under the control of the federal government are one with him. Recently the Supreme Court supports his unconstitutional change of the new tax law that the House of Representatives has passed. The unconditional and therefore illegal GAZETTING of the new tax law by the president is said by the court as accepted.

BEFORE the illegal gazetting of the new tax law, there was the uproar, and the demand by the North, for the president to drop the controversial Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Josh Ojo Amiputan from Plateau State.

THE new national electoral umpire allegedly wrote a ‘LEGAL BRIEF’ to the United States, urging it to attack Nigeria and save its Christians from the Hausa/Fulani Muslim Fundamentalists’, even though he fully well knew that his allegation was absolutely UNTRUE. He was STILL retained by undemocratic Tinubu, who appears to respect ONLY orders from France, and his wife.

THE France holidaying president, is also bribing his way to have Nigeria converted into a ONE-PARTY state. The state governors are rushing to join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and benefit from the multiple of billions of naira coming from him. Just a few days ago the impossible happened, the Plateu State Governor, Barrister Caleb Manasseh Muftwang, allegedly dumped the People Democratic Party (PDP), and joined the APC.

THE president appears to be running his regime on corruption, coercion and intimidation, making some naira trillionaires, and pauperising many citizens along the way. There some trillionaires and billionaires in the Nation Assembly (NASS), and millions of paupers, many in the streets or in refugee camps in Nigeria.

SOME of the trillionaires and billionaires in NASS do Nothing more than sit in the law making place. A negligible number of others only pronounce pro regime results of voice votes all the time, because that is what the regime pays them to do. And the bigger the paycheque to them, the more combative they become when protecting the interest of the regime.

PRESIDENT Tinubu appears to be in his element ONLY when he is grovelingly doing the bidding of his Western Hemisphere masters, or obsequiously his wife’s. He also does the same thing to the prime religious leader of Nigeria’s First Lady.

THIS does not look like progress or ‘love’ for democracy. It is a disaster for the ruling party as it will suffer the fate of an overloaded transformer. When a transformer is overloaded it bursts.

IT is therefore only a matter of time before APC implodes. Imploding will be the last and final result of the party in Nigeria, because what is happening to it when most politician of renown in and outside the opposition in the country is jostling to become a member, should be a cause for concern not jubilation.

ABOUT 20 state governors allegedly rushed out of Nigeria to various Western countries enjoying themselves for the Christmas and New Year holidays. It is perhaps in line with the practice set for them by the number one citizen, who runs to France where he and his close members of family are feted by his boss, and, at times by his Lebanese-born front. This he does at the slightest chance, including his ‘working’ holidays.

IT is perhaps part of the president’s effort to ‘DEFEND’ democracy in Nigeria, by serving his Western masters, while most of his compatriots at home are going through a never-before-experienced, poverty, hunger and insecurity.

WAY back in 2016 the foresighted Dan’iyan Misau, Alhaji Aliko Muhammed, foresaw the resurgence of ‘RESTRUCTURING’, which he was himself a supporter, but which would be vehemently opposed by a number of Nigerians, most of whom would be Northerners.

ACCORDING to the preeminent late Northern, there is nothing wrong with restructuring, but “the worst part of our situation is that we have adopted the American Constitution, which is too expensive. In the whole world, it is only America that is operating that type of Constitution; even at that, it is not successful.”

“HOW can a minister have about 10 assistants who are paid by government? In the parliamentary system, ministers have a private secretary and a parliamentary assistant and that is all.”

“BUT I believe we have to sit down and decide on how we going to be. Our system of government is too expensive, we cannot afford it. Besides, we do not even have the resources to do that.”

THE President is not addressing ‘RESTRUCTURING’ as the concept is known. He is only applying it to make his home state of Lagos the most financially stable state in Nigeria, and, Lagos, one of the greatest cities in the world.

ANOTHER ‘sothayer’, Malam Abdussalam Muhammed Kazaure, the then Chairman of Arewa Political Forum (APF), voiced it another way in his Wednesday 2022 write up, ‘2023: APC’S troubling agenda’.

IN his write up, he observed that “The All Progressives Congress, APC, appears intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of a likely victory with its baffling all Northern strategy.”

INDEED, although he was only talking about APC of yesteryears, his article may well be about today’s APC, under President Tinubu. The APC under him resembles a loaded transformer, which is bound to burst, sooner rather than later.

MAY God deny the aspiration of the people who are hell bent on turning Nigeria into an unattractive one-party state. May He also not provide the opportunity to such people to murder democracy in the country in 2027.

Malumfashi wrote from ABUJA.