As Nigeria celebrates Democracy Day today being 12th of June, 2020, Mr. Jibrin Samuel Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has opined that Nigeria is not practicing true Democracy.
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In a statement made available to TheNigeriaLawyer (TNL), Okutepa said: “On this Democracy Day, it has become imperative for me to say with respect that we are not practicing democracy in the real sense of the word. The events in the past 21 years clearly showed that what we operate and practice is a civilian rule that is completely different from democracy.
He added that “We are all witnesses to the do or die “democracy” being practiced in our land. The primaries of our political parties are far from being democratic. The people have no choice as to who governs them. The sovereignty of the people is replaced with thuggery or gunshot choices in the name of democracy where the barrel of the gun are unleashed on our people to force people on us.
He made reference to the statement of the INEC Chairman allegedly reported by the media that Independent National Electoral Commission will protect the integrity of the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states scheduled for September 19 and October 10, 2020.
He said the INEC Chairman was quoted to have said that “the commission would avoid a replay of what happened during the governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States held on November 16, 2019.”
He quoted the media in respect of the INEC Chairman’s statement as follows:
“While threatening that it would not make a declaration on the outcome of any disputed election due to lack of adherence to guiding rules, INEC stated that it had been dragged to court over 2,000 times in the last one and the half years over the conduct of the 2019 elections and party primaries. The chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, gave the warning during a virtual event on democracy and elections in West Africa, organised by the Washington DC-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Democracy and Development.
Yakubi said, “I had a meeting with the National Security Adviser, we are meeting with all the security agencies. But what pro-active measure is the commission going to take to ensure that if there is a replay of what happened in Bayelsa and Kogi? We will protect the integrity of the process.”
Yakubu said there would be no point making a declaration in such a situation because the commission would not endorse fraud or function outside the minimum standard set for the conduct of credible elections anywhere. He warned political parties to “either behave for the elections to be concluded in a free and fair manner or we do what the law says.”
Yakubu said, “Where the election is disrupted and the commission cannot vouch for the integrity of the process, we will not go ahead to make any declaration.
While elections are disrupted, we should look far beyond the electoral commission.
I think you put your fingers on the problem, on the political class, and the security challenges.
And that is why we have been engaging with them.”
Okutepa said the report above shows an admission by INEC that elections in Nigeria do not reflect democracy. “From news reports INEC has always admitted that most of the outcomes of our elections are not true reflections of democracy or true reflections of the will of the people.
INEC has always preached and sermonised this in the public. For me INEC preaching and sermons in public are completely different from INEC in action on the field either during primaries of political parties or during elections or post elections in the courts or Tribunals. If not why has INEC been defending these flawed and most undemocratic products of elections with the best legal teams for the past 21 years.”
Okutepa believes that “our real problem in this country is lack of sincerity of purpose. We preach free, fair and credible elections, but we defend thuggery and gunshots democracy in courts based purely on primordial partisan interest that does not take into accounts the interests of vast majority of Nigerians.”
He said “Real Democracy was practised on the 12th day of June 1993 when Nigerians of all works of life voted without discrimination. Those who truncated the June 12th democracy are still very much around.”
The learned silk concluded with suggestions on how the country can ensure the practice of Democracy
“The government must go beyond celebrating Democracy Day to ensuring that democracy is really practiced here.
This it can do by:
1. Stop defending flawed elections.
2. Those who used means outside of the sovereignty of the people to get to offices must be punished to serve as a deterrent to others.
3. Those who forced their ways into public offices using thugs and guns must be brought to justice.
4. The judicial arm of government must avoid putting judicial roadblocks to our electoral jurisprudence and avoid setting principles that aid and abet electoral frauds and
5. We must look at the remuneration for our political class. I think the most lucrative business in Nigeria today is politics.
That is why there is no service for our people and the political class engaged themselves in a do or die democracy using guns to stay in power to recoup their investments.”
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