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Nigeria’s democracy issue is often wrongly framed as if democracy is a foreign garment that we have to keep adapting until it fits our body. We talk about Westminster, Washington, Athens, Paris and every vocabulary borrowed from governance, but the wound before us is neither Greek, nor British, nor American.
He is Nigerian. Our hunger is Nigerian. Our insecurity is Nigerian. Our broken families are Nigerians. Our abandoned children are Nigerians. Our vote buying, ethno-religious suspicion, weak local institutions, elite impunity and democratic impatience are Nigerian. Therefore, any democracy that can heal us must be achieved in Nigeria.
This is not a request for isolation. It is an appeal to ownership. Democracy cannot survive if imported furniture is placed in a burning house. It must grow starting from our values, our culture, our history and our realities. It must be owned by the people, shaped by our communities and guided by our collective aspirations for justice, equity and peace. He must answer the question of the farmer from Bassa, the displaced woman from Barkin Ladi, the market woman from Jos, the young man from Mangu, the traditional ruler trying to hold a fractured community together, the child who no longer has faith in the home, and the citizen who has voted many times but has yet to feel government is a cure.
Since 1999, Nigeria has traveled a long and bumpy democratic journey. The return to civilian government after years of military dictatorship was no small achievement. It restored constitutional government, reopened civic space, revived political parties, strengthened the press, expanded civil society involvement, and gave citizens the language with which to question power.
We have had repeated elections, transitions between administrations, legislative contests, judicial interventions, public protests, investigative journalism, and a growing generation of young Nigerians who no longer kneel before authority simply because it bears a title.
These are earnings. They shouldn’t be fired.
But democracy is not simply the presence of elections. It is the presence of dignity. It’s not just about vote counting. It’s the counting of lives. It is not complete because politicians campaign, courts sit, governors are sworn in and budgets are read. Democracy becomes real when the weakest person in the community can say: “This country sees me. This system protects me. This government serves me.”
This is where our democratic journey remains painfully incomplete.
From 1999 to date, Nigeria has built the rituals of democracy faster than the culture of democracy. We have mastered rallies, slogans, posters, primaries, posters, defections, and inauguration ceremonies, but we have not sufficiently mastered accountability, inclusion, local ownership, civic discipline, and justice.
Too much power remains concentrated at the center. Too many local governments exist more as paycheck points than as drivers of grassroots development. Too many communities are remembered only during elections, condolences or conflict assessment visits. Too many citizens are mobilized as voters but abandoned as human beings.
Democracy made in Nigeria must therefore start by putting people at the centre. Government exists to serve the people and not the other way around. A system that treats citizens as spectators between election cycles is not democracy. It is a political theater with ballot boxes. A home-made democracy insists that the woman, the youth, the disabled person, the displaced person, the farmer, the trader, the child, the minority voice and the forgotten community are not footnotes in national history. I am history.
To be internal, democracy must also be rooted in culture, but not in the abuse of culture. It must respect our languages, traditions, common memory and ways of life, rejecting any cultural excuse for injustice. Culture should be a bridge, not a cage. It should protect the vulnerable, not silence them. It should teach respect for elders, but also responsibility on the part of elders. It should honor the family, but never hide violence within family walls. It should value the community, but never allow loyalty to the community to bury the truth.
The crisis of Nigerian democracy is not just in Abuja. It’s also in the house. It is at the family reunion that the girls are denied their inheritance. It is overall that the abuse is covered because the perpetrator is related. It is in marriage that responsibility is abandoned. It is in the neighborhood where everyone knows that a child is suffering but waiting for the “government” to arrive. It is in the community that young people are recruited for dangerous jobs because poverty has become an employer. It is in silence that teaches violence how to grow teeth.
A recent week in the Plateau State Gender and Equal Opportunities Commission, particularly in the Department of Public Complaints and Mediation, told a disturbing story. In one case, a 16-year-old student became pregnant after alleged abuse in her own home. In another, an eight-year-old girl from Tudun Wada was brought before the Commission after an alleged sexual assault by a neighbour. Her story was already full of tragedy: displacement, loss of parents to violence, and dependence on an elderly grandmother. Another ten-year-old girl had to be reunited with her family in Enugu Agidi after two years of abuse while living with a distant relative in Jos. He needed psychosocial support before returning home.
In the same week, illegal commercial parking was reported around Anguldi, Jos South Local Government Area. The police intervened promptly and arrests were made. Twelve young people, including three young women, were brought to the Commission. Early interrogations suggested a worrying pattern: the park operated on a weekly basis, moving young teenagers from Jos to Ibadan.
These are not isolated moral incidents. These are democratic alarms. But the whole team somehow succeeds collectively because they understand the terrain.
The conflict does not end when the shooting stops. Enter homes. It alters parenting. Move the kids. It weakens vigilance. It destroys livelihoods. It creates fear, dependency, resentment and desperation. A society that does not heal its conflict will end up seeing conflict migrate into marriage, childhood, education, work, politics and faith. The family becomes the first victim, and later the polling unit becomes only a mirror of the wounded home.
This is why democracy cannot be discussed only in constitutional language. It must be discussed in human language. When family values erode, democracy suffers. When parental responsibility collapses, democracy suffers. When the culture of respect for human dignity becomes almost non-existent, democracy suffers. When children are unsafe, women are overburdened, fathers disappear from responsibilities, mothers are left without support, and communities outsource morality to government agencies, democracy becomes a rootless tree.
The problems holding us back are therefore clear. We continue to operate systems that often ignore local realities. We suffer from the concentration of power and lack of accountability. Our local institutions are weak. Our democratic culture is poor. Tribalism, ethnicity and religious intolerance are too easily weaponized. Many citizens are apathetic because they have been let down too often. Others are active only when their group interest is touched. But a person who participates decides its fate. Anyone who watches politics from the balcony should not be scandalized when decisions are made in rooms where he is absent.
Internal democracy must be community-driven. Decisions must be made at the local level through dialogue, consensus and trust. Nigeria cannot continue to pretend that Abuja can understand every stream, shrine, church, mosque, market, grazing route, school, boundary dispute and family wound better than the people who live with them on a daily basis. Local problems require local intelligence. But local intelligence must be connected to justice, not captured by local power brokers.
This is why traditional rulers, community leaders, women leaders, youth groups, religious leaders, civil society organizations, government agencies, schools, security institutions and families must become democratic actors, not passive observers.
Democracy is not just CENI. It’s not just the National Assembly. It’s not just about the courts. Democracy is the mother who protects her child, the father who accepts responsibility with honor, the neighbor who reports abuse, the teacher who notices distress, the police officer who acts promptly, the mediator who listens attentively, the traditional ruler who refuses to hide wrongdoings, the pastor and imam who preach dignity, and the citizen who refuses to sell tomorrow for a small envelope today.
Finally, we must rebuild the moral architecture of the family. Mothers, fathers, guardians, relatives and neighbors must intervene to nip these problems in the bud. Home is not outside democracy. The home is the place where the citizenry first learns about care or cruelty. If the child learns to remain silent in the face of abuse, he or she may become an adult who fears power. If the child learns to have dignity, he can become a citizen who asks for justice.
Our country. Our democracy. Our future: may Nigeria win.
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