As Nigeria marks another June 12 Democracy Day, the air is thick with official rhetoric. Banners drape public buildings, military parades march in synchronized precision, and state-sponsored broadcasts dutifully extol the “resilience of the Nigerian spirit” and the “milestone” of uninterrupted civil rule. Yet, outside the heavily guarded corridors of power, the mood across the nation, and particularly here in North, is one of profound frustration, exhaustion, and quiet despair.
June 12 was never meant to be a mere day off from work, nor was it meant to be an administrative ritual for a self-serving political class to pat itself on the back. It represents a sacred ideal. Thirty-three years ago, in 1993, Nigerians from every corner of this country smashed ethnic, religious, and regional barriers to deliver a flawless democratic mandate. They voted for hope. They voted for the promise of a nation where the ballot box would translate into a better life, secure communities, and a responsive government.
Today, that ideal has been largely hollowed out, leaving behind an empty shell of democratic rituals completely detached from the daily realities of the masses.
The most stinging indictment of our current democratic experiment is our staggering inability to manage basic internal governance. It is a shameful paradox that nearly 66 years after throwing off the shackles of colonial rule, Nigerian political parties cannot successfully conduct a simple, transparent primary election. What we witness instead, cycle after cycle, is a charade of imposition, monetization, and violent manipulation. Internal democracy within our major political parties is virtually dead. Party structures have been hijacked by godfathers and executive power-wourlders who treat dissent as a crime and the party ticket as personal property.
When the foundation of leadership recruitment is so thoroughly compromised by a lack of internal democracy, the leadership it produces cannot logically serve the public good. If a political party cannot govern itself or respect the choices of its own members, how can it be trusted to safeguard the constitutional rights of over 200 million citizens?
This institutional failure at the foundational level directly feeds the monster that is destroying the fabric of our society: persistent, unchecked insecurity. The primary and overriding constitutional responsibility of any government—the singular justification for its existence—is the protection of lives and property. On this front, the state is failing catastrophically. From the rampant banditry and mass kidnappings that plague our rural communities and highways in the North, to the localized terror that disrupts daily commerce and farming, Nigerians are living in a permanent state of vulnerability.
The masses are frustrated, and rightfully so. Farmers cannot access their lands without paying taxes to terrorists; parents wave goodbye to their children going to school with terror in their hearts; and traders travel across states risking everything. Yet, the official response remains a repetitive loop of empty promises, “strategic reviews,” and defense budgets that yield minimal safety on the ground. We are told that “democracy is a work in progress,” but progress cannot be measured in body counts and displaced persons camps.
Democracy cannot thrive where citizens are trapped in an endless cycle of economic hardship and fear. A system where the political elite live in obscene luxury, fueled by massive public borrowing and opaque resource allocation, while the average citizen can barely afford a single meal, is not a democracy—it is an oligarchy wearing a democratic mask. The true dividends of democracy are not the smooth handovers of power from one elite faction to another; they are security, accountability, the rule of law, and economic dignity for the common man.
As we look ahead, the system must undergo radical introspection. We cannot continue to celebrate the mere survival of democracy while ignoring its qualitative decay. Our electoral umpire must be truly independent, our judiciary must resist becoming a tool for political hatchet jobs, and above all, political parties must restore power to the card-carrying members through genuine internal reforms.
June 12 must cease to be a day of hollow nostalgia. It must become a day of reckoning. The political class must realize that the patience of the masses is not infinite. To honor the countless patriots who bled on the streets for this democracy, we must demand more than an uninterrupted calendar of civilian administrations. We must demand a government that works, primaries that are fair, a leadership that listens, and above all, a nation where citizens can sleep with their two eyes closed. Anything less is a betrayal of the true spirit of June 12.
