Despite the challenges of nation-building, Nigeria has been described as a “Democracy Destination undergoing democratic consolidation ” contrary to some recent high-profile discordant views about the prospects of the democratic process in Africa.
Recently both former President Olusegun Obasanjo and erstwhile governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, had claimed that democracy was dying in Africa and Nigeria”.
However, the Director General Micheal Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) Comrade Issa Aremu took exception to what he called the “new Democracy-pessimism fad” by those he said “without democracy would not have been able to exhibit their limited leadership ability in the past”.
Aremu spoke at separate interventions at the sideline of the 2025 Ramadan lecture of the Institute held in Ilorin and at Arewa House Kaduna during the Special Prayers to mark the 73rd birthday of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu organised by AREWA Think Tank Group on Saturday.
Aremu observed that it was time for Nigerians to deepen and consolidate the democratic process adding that “democratic optimism must not in any way give way to democratic despair in Africa”.
“ With 19 Registered Political Parties, 93,469,008, Total Voters Registered, 176,846 Polling Units in Nigeria, 7 concluded presidential elections since 1999, 5 elected Presidents, 2 elected twice, one graciously accepting the loss of election, hundreds of state, National Assembly elections and bye-elections, active media, vibrant organised trade unions and civil society, freedoms of assembly and expressions, Nigeria is a model of how Democracy lives, not dying” Aremu observed.
The Director General cautioned the media to “report but also profile the messengers of messages of despair and doom” for discerning citizens for informed judgement about them. Aremu said both former President Obasanjo and former governor Peter Obi suffer what he called “bring-down-what I- cannot-control-syndrome” adding that democracy is alive for only those who necessarily must not have their ways all the time but still keep faith in the ballot. “ “Afro-democracy” is another subterfuge for a call to authoritarianism by OBJ, Democracy is not divisible, it is according to the 1999 constitution, the simple majority that made OBJ President twice, Peter Obi governor and a failed Presidential candidate in 2023, any resort to red hearing that Democracy is dying because the duo are out and dry of elsewhere power is unhelpful and self-serving”.
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