Opinion: Dear dictators, our institutions are too weak

by Babatunde Odunlami

 

NigeriansNigeria as a nation needs to strengthen and fortify her democratic institutions, make them independent, mutually exclusive to‎ one another or else tyranny will never cease from manifesting.

Our democracy is weak. The fundamentals of our democracy are weak. At the end of Obasanjo administration we had to go through the third term agenda which heightened the tensions in Nigeria. Yar’Adua fell ill and later died and Nigeria had to overcome the CABAL by invoking the doctrine of necessity. Abacha tried to succeed himself so he had to abuse all state resources to this end but Nigeria prevailed and transitioned into a democracy.

Our country is always grappling with the problem of dictatorship‎ because our democracy is weak and imbalanced. It isn’t rocket science to know that our feeble  institutions are the reasons why we have a weak democracy. Institutions such as the ; police,military, courts, people, INEC, EFCC, DSS etc, are not strong and independent enough to resist manipulation by our Commander in Chief. The Presidency  is too powerful that the incumbent can manipulate all these institutions for his own purpose against the will of the state.

Nigeria has ‎a dictator in the Presidency  in this current administration. INEC had to postpone elections due to heavy inducement from the military. The military put immense pressure on INEC to postpone the election. If all our democratic institutions were independent none will erode or manipulate the other. The office of the C in C is full of too much powers that the occupant can manipulate any institution for his own personal gain at the expense of the state.

Recently, the police on the pretext of national security and preventing touts from gaining entry into the NASS blocked the legislators from entering the complex,denied entry to the speaker and teargassed the resistant legislators. This is a brazen act of tyranny. The conduct of security agencies are strange recently that one wonders on whose instructions they carry out their acts. That the military is involved in the electoral process by the President – a la Ekiti, Osun states and now 2015 elections- so much so that the military can influence the postponement of elections. This  is sacrilegious! In a democracy, the military has no business in the electoral process!

Nigeria as a nation needs to strengthen and fortify her democratic institutions, make them independent, mutually exclusive to‎ one another or else tyranny will never cease from manifesting. The country always deals with this aberration whenever an administration is about to complete it’s course or during elections. The system is vulnerable to manipulation and tyranny. This is a system built to foster tyranny and dictatorship.
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Babatunde Odunlami tweets from @batundemusic

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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