The 1999 Constitution as amended is not a democratic document. It’s a decree written by feudalist military generals totally alien to what democracy is all about.
The annual observance of Democracy Day in Nigeria is a mockery of democracy. It’s an occasion to mark the hypocrisy of democracy. It is hypocrisy because there’s discrepancy between what democracy promises and the lived experiences of Nigerians. Every government in Nigeria suffers from accusations and counter-accusations of hypocrisy of democracy.
The 1999 Constitution as amended is not a democratic document. It’s a decree written by feudalist military generals totally alien to what democracy is all about. We the Nigerian people had no input in the constitution. Anocracy is a hybrid form of government that mixes democratic and autocratic features. It allows for some public participation but lacks strict institutional checks and balances. This is the kind of democracy practiced in Nigeria characterized by manipulated elections, weak rule of law, and shifting power dynamics.
In anocracy, government holds multiparty elections, but the state heavily restricts the opposition, controls the media, and constraints civil liberties. Nigeria holds elections every four years, but the system lacks institutional constraints to prevent the ruling party from entrenching its power through election rigging by vote buying, by offering rice, gari and kulikuli, money, and other ridiculous forms of bribery to voters.
