Ahead of the proposed celebration of June 12 as Democracy Day in Nigeria, the Board Chairman of Amaka Chiwuike-Uba Foundation (ACUF), Dr Chiwuike Uba, has said that Nigeria is not yet a democratic nation.
IOn a statement made available to Blueprint Weekend, Uba said , though the day is significant in the political history of Nigeria, statistics show that the nation is still far from measuring up to indices used in indicating democratic nations.
He said: “In all honesty, as a country, we should be celebrating our transition to civilian rule and not democracy, as it were. Until we truly become a democratic nation, it would be inappropriate to celebrate who we are not.
“Using some of the established democracy index across the world as basis, it is evident that Nigeria is not yet a full democratic nation. The Economic Intelligence Unit 2018 democracy index ranked Nigeria 108th country out of the 167 countries ranked. In determining the rank, certain measurement indicators using a scale of 0-10 were applied.
“Nigeria scored 6.08 under electoral process & pluralism; 4.64 on functioning of government, 3.33 in political participation, 3.75 in political culture and 4.41 in civil liberties. The above scores led to the classification of Nigeria as hybrid democracy.
“Implicitly, it classifies Nigeria as a nation whose democracy is replete with irregularities in elections, regularly preventing them from being fair and free, pressure on political opponents, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anemic rule of law, underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.”
Furthermore, Uba said that, “The polity IV score, which captures regime authority spectrum on a 21-pont scale ranging from -10 to +10 categorized into “autocracies” (-10 to -6), “anocracies” (-5 to +5) and “democracies” (+6 to +10), scored Nigeria +4.
“This reconfirms that Nigeria is not yet a full democracy. On the hand, Freedom House index classified Nigeria as partly free showing that political rights and civil liberties are still encumbered by government interferences through command and control system.
“From the above statistics, we really do not have the required locus to celebrate democracy. We are still very far from attaining that status. Nevertheless, I commend the President for setting outside June 12 to immortalise Abiola, who died fighting for his truncated mandate.”
Additionally, Uba said that, “June 12 was the day democracy truncated through an annulment of an election adjudged as free and fair, and as such could stand a day for democracy. It was a day democracy was killed. I would have recommended June 6 as a democracy day, because that day marked the beginning of a new transition to a ‘democratic rule’, following the death of Gen. Sani Abacha.
“Apparently, there is a huge confusion already with the change in date for the democracy day. We have May 29 as the handover day, which incidentally was the former democracy day. That day won’t change soon because new governments will always commence on that day. I don’t see the date change as a problem.
“It remains a handover date for new governments. June 12 may remain as Democracy Day as pronounced by the President and confirmed by the National Assembly. However, in celebrating the day, it is important that we reflect as a nation on ways to attain full democracy. Without that attainment of full democracy, the democracy day celebration remains same as borrowing to fund wastages and corruption.”
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