I have seen and read a lot of people celebrate the Presidential broadcast commemorating June 12 as Nigeria’s Democracy Day while also making every attempt to paint himself as a democrat in every form of it.
Yes, it’s no gainsaying that Tinubu participated in the clamour for the recognition of MKO Abiola as the President-elect in the annulled election of ’93. But then, the June 12 clamour was not about MKO Abiola but about the Nigerian people that stood their ground for the return of democracy.
However, the cheeky reference to “HOPE ’93” by Tinubu does not make him a true democrat. In fact, we should ask what has been his scorecard since his assumption of office if not an organised attack against the working people of Nigeria.
As a people, we are not new to rhetoric as the one that was made by the President. We have had tens of undemocratic elements mount podium and spew different rhetoric about how beautiful democracy is and how “we must not take this democracy for granted” when in the real sense they have dingy undemocratic credentials.
At least, we know how the President ran Lagos against the wishes, aspirations and wills of the people as Lagos overall Lord. But then, we are in another season of rhetoric that celebrates democracy without recourse to justice, equity and fairness; a season when the drumbeats and trumpets blow of sycophants fills the air; a season of self-adulation; a season when everyone is a democrats, defenders and pillars of democracy. Or, should we say it’s a season that reflects our unique brand of democracy?
It is so shameful that the President who was busy confiscating the political rights of people to aspire for offices and the rights of the people to choose who represents them while he was the feudal Lord of Lagos is being hailed as an advocate and defender of democracy just to feed his famished ego. The sycophants around him are quick to erase his conduct and record against democratic ethos just for validation and political showmanship.
Even Governors who run their States as fiefdoms were on the podium this morning lecturing the rest of us about democracy. But, as we remember the year the general will of the people was openly upturned by a military junta, the Nigerian people must seek for a complete change of the democratic orientation of those piloting the affairs of the country which is serving as a bane on democracy in this part of the world rather than keep romancing their ego.
