When Nigeria was declared an independent state on October 1st, 1960, the whole country went into a ‘we-have-won’ jamboree and those who were at the forefront of the ‘supposed struggle’ were declared heroes.

The colonialists left in their numbers and Nigerians began to feel like a sovereign state that could control her borders just like every other free state.

History, however, highlights that the colonialists weren’t ‘too happy’ to leave such a rich state in the hands of those they stereotyped as ‘simple and primitive’ – a set of people who had to embrace the culture of the Europeans and completely forget their own.

It also didn’t take time before powerful Aborigines understood that the nation’s resources couldn’t be left to the people to ‘waste’ and so, (I stand corrected) started colluding with the same colonial masters to continue controlling the state’s resources – this gave birth to NEOCOLONIALISM.

No need over emphasising that Nigeria is an under-developed nation, wallowing in extreme poverty, centuries behind Western civilisations.

Do you want to know why?

There is a new form of colonialism, by the same colonialists, masked under the pretext of economic support for Nigeria (Food aids, drug aids) – details for another day.

The argument for today is how neocolonialism hinders the growth of democracy.

Nigeria is yet to become a full-fledged democracy because the way the nation is run in the mode of a pseudo-democracy – an impartial type of democracy or empty democracy.

In that case, just like the passing down of cultural values to the younger generation, democracy is passed down in an oral form, not a practising form.

Of course, elections take place, but citizens are cut off from knowledge of the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties.

Let’s wait a minute and disintegrate the societally-defined definition of democracy.

DEMOCRACY – 1. the government of the people. In Nigeria’s case, nothing indicates that the government is in real control of the resources of the nation, as we have to invite experts from developed economies when a political, social or economic decision is about to be made.

2. By the people. If we go down memory lane, we would remember that the colonial masters used indigenous chiefs to bring down the strength of a unified people; deceiving Nigerians into believing that our then religious beliefs and cultural values were to be annihilated. Who would wonder why loots from African nations are used to develop other countries, and why religious leaders are used to keep us from questioning history?

3. For the people. Just a question. Where does democracy come in when we talk about how our leaders ‘listen to our voices’?

One might be tempted to argue that this problem grew out of long years of military rule, but there is a counterargument. Since 1999, civilian rulers themselves have not handled the affairs of the nation differently – wanton corruption is still the order of the day, political opponents have also been assassinated.

Unless Nigeria is drawn out of the net of neocolonialism, democracy is but a tell-tale title of a story that never ends well.