By Kenneth Okonkwo

Leadership, according to Dr Myles Munroe, is the ability to motivate, move, drive, influence people toward a particular direction through inspiration and not intimidation or manipulation. Inspiration is the stimulation or arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity channelled towards achieving a particular objective or solving a specific problem. Inspired people produce results. They identify the problems of society and solve them. Democracy is the people’s government and finds intimidation and manipulation very irritating. It thrives on inspiration.

It is not surprising that people who live under genuine democracy are more creative than people who live under dictatorship. Reason is simple, democracy ensures freedom for the people. Under the condition of freedom, the spirit is not under any restriction from imagination that will better the society. Dictatorship creates a certain bondage on the people which affects their ability to think and create. Africa is the least democratic in the world and this explains their lack of creativity in comparison with other continents of the world. Their leaders see themselves as royals that are entitled to a life of affluence, no matter the level of poverty of their people. United States of America is the freest democratic country on earth and today the most powerful nation in the world.

The worst system of government is the manipulative dictatorship. This system pretends to be democratic, yet it’s a full blown dictatorship in disguise. This is what Nigeria’s system of government is today. One must note that our Constitution, whether intentionally or unintentionally, encourages this system of government. Nigeria is one of the few countries on earth, which is pretending to be a democracy, that has only one federal police force taking charge of the whole security problems in our country.

The British that colonised us did not leave us with one central police force. Our independence Constitution did not give us one central police force. Dictatorship of the military bequeathed us with one cental police force and the manipulative dictatorship is sustaining it as a tool of intimidation and manipulation of the whole federation. The Lagos-Ibadan axis of our political spectrum has been most vociferous in the call for state police, true federalism, restructuring etc. Now that the Lagos kingpin is at the helm of affairs, I “hope” these lofty dreams will soon come to fruition. Unfortunately, it’s not in the dna of despots and dictators to allow for any policy that will reduce their authoritarian leaning, no matter their pretence at democracy.

The pillars of democracy include free, fair, credible and periodic elections, rule of law, impartial and independent judiciary, protection of the fundamental human rights of the citizens of Nigeria, free and independent press that hold government accountable for their actions. Manipulative dictatorship will always pretend that they are Democrats but when weighed on the scale with the pillars of democracy, their hypocrisy is laid bare.

The first and most fundamental pillar of democracy is free and fair elections. With regards to this pillar, even the umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), came out boldly to confirm that they couldn’t conduct the presidential election of 25th February, 2023 as stipulated by the laws because of technical glitch. Nobody from the Commission has been bold enough to tell Nigerians what the technical glitch was. The National Commissioner in charge of voter education came out on national television to confess, many months after the election, that he didn’t know what the technical glitch was. If the person that is paid to educate Nigerians on how to vote, could not tell Nigerians what happened to their votes after the election, your guess is as good as mine that the election was “jankara” election.

Supporters of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of Labour Party, were denied collecting their pvcs and consequently prevented from voting. Ballot boxes were snatched openly on election day in Lagos. People were forcefully denied their rights to vote and chased away from the polling units. Ballot boxes and papers were burnt and some thrown into water. Presiding Officers were told not to transmit electronically the results of the presidential election and even the ones that were not told were not given the code to transmit. The ones that transmitted were obstructed from reaching the server. No result was uploaded unto the IREV Portal for the whole world to see before announcing results as loquaciously promised by Prof Mahmood, the INEC Chairman, and Festus Okoye, the INEC voter education commissioner. Eventually, INEC announced the presidential election result without anybody seeing or knowing what they declared and shamelessly told aggrieved parties to go to court. The IREV Portal was uploaded after the results were announced and till date, INEC has not reconciled the electronically generated results with the manually generated results as required by law. 18088 blurred, blank, illegible results, with some polling units bearing the pictures of human beings and animals as their results, were uploaded on the IREV Portal as polling units results. The effect was that the presidential election was condemned both locally and internationally as falling below the minimum standard of credibility for elections. The ECOWAS report which the ruling party seemed to prefer, remarked that the election was marred by violence and killing of political opponents. The first pillar of democracy, having been desecrated, cannot produce a democrat as its benefactor. What you compromise to get, you compromise to keep.

Rule of law is the next casualty in a manipulative dictatorship. This government started trampling on the law from the inaugural speech. Without consultation with any human being, living or dead, when he was sworn in as President, the ruling party leader declared, “subsidy is gone”. This declaration wasn’t even part of the script written for him. The law was that fuel subsidy should last till end of June and the function of the executive is to implement the law, whether comfortable or uncomfortable. He didn’t. Rising from the illegal declaration, which has virtually ruined the Nigerian economy, this regime reached out and illegally arrested the former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele and the former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa. For six weeks, Emefiele was held without trial for purported allegations of sponsoring terrorism, despite a subsisting court order not to arrest him based on this allegation. At the end of the six weeks, after another court issued another ultimatum, Emefiele was charged with being in possession of a pistol and some rounds of ammunition. He was supposed to be charged for this offence, 24 hours after being arrested but was not. This is simply orchestrated to send signals to political opponents and foes that the instruments of coercion will be applied to anyone, no matter how highly placed that person maybe. A tool of intimidation and manipulation.

Something unfortunate happened within the court premises, when Emefiele was granted bail and ordered to be remanded in the correctional center. The State Security Service (SSS) rearressted him within the premises of the court, after assaulting the officers of the correctional center sent to evacuate him to their abode, and after firing some shots from their guns to scare people. This happened under the nose of a leader who admonished all the security agencies to work together in peace and harmony. Till date, he has not made any statement condemning or admonishing the members of the SSS on their unlawful actions. When he came into office and learnt that the SSS was occupying the office of the EFCC in Lagos, he issued an order for them to withdraw and they did. If he issued no order for them to withdraw from the assault on the court to thwart the order of the court in order to get at perceived political opponent, it’s obvious that it was his wish that the SSS didn’t obey the court order. This is the hallmark of dictatorship. With this action, he has infringed on the fundamental human rights of a Nigerian, disobeyed the order of a court in order to destroy the impartiality and independence of the courts.

Further to the desecration of the rule of law is the non’appointment of the Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria within 60 days of his being sworn in. The 1999 Constitution is very clear in Section 147 (1)(2)(3) that the President shall appoint Ministers from all the States of the Federation within 60 days of his inauguration. On the 60th day, the President, who claimed that being President has been his lifelong ambition, could not fulfill this provision. About 11 States were not included in the list which is completely against the spirit and letter of the Constitution that forbids discrimination among the federating units of the country. The Constitution is very clear that all the States must provide a Minister and they should be appointed within 60 days of inauguration. Apart from trampling on the rule of law, it shows that he wasn’t even prepared to be President after all.

Is there any need stating that the entire leadership of the National Assembly were picked by him, without the imput of even the leadership of his party. His dictatorial tendency led to the resistance by the National Chairman of APC, Senator Adamu, to the list of National Assembly leadership which led to his further humiliation and eventual ouster as Chairman. This leadership style has led to increased poverty, battered economy, national uproar, virulent presidential petition against the presidential election, harassment of citizens, courts and Judges and desecration of the rule of law. A burgeoning dictatorship is blossoming in Nigeria gradually as it commenced in Lagos and has lasted for more than 24 years in Lagos. If this leadership trajectory is allowed to take root in Nigeria, who knows how long it will take. Nigerians voted for democracy and we must be eternally vigilant to protect it. In a democracy, the government is supposed to be afraid of the people and not the people afraid of the government. Yes, we can have a republic, only if we can protect it, otherwise let every Nigerian start preparing for the eventual collapse of democracy in Nigeria for democracy cannot survive without its pillars built on solid foundation. You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand, it will fall.