Nigeria’s democracy without legislators and judiciary, by Dele Sobowale

“Legislators have the first place in the temple of glory; conquerors come behind them” – Voltaire, 1694-1778, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 126

When one of the world’s leading philosophers made that remark in the eighteenth century, democracy was a new idea. What another sage, half a world away, in America, described as “the government of the people, by the people and for the people” was an intoxicating new form of government – promising freedom, prosperity and progress for people worldwide. It appeared self-evident and inevitable for a while – especially after World War II. There was no country called Nigeria, when Voltaire spoke about legislators. He could not have imagined a legislative branch of government, so totally bereft of glory, as we now have in Abuja as our National Assembly, NASS. It would appear that there is nothing questionable that our NASS would not do.

FROM OBASANJO TO TINUBU – DECLINE IN SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few” – George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, VBQ p 37

By the middle of the last century, great thinkers have already started to observe the flaws in democracy; that in the hands of politicians, the people were gradually losing their control of their destinies and their lives. Corruption in the three branches – executive, legislative and judiciary – was the rule; not the exception anymore virtually everywhere. But, even people like Shaw could not have imagined a nation, pretending to be democratic, like Nigeria – while its lawmakers and judiciary deliberately remove all the guard rails for good governance in a good democracy. What has happened to Nigeria since 1999 brings to mind the statement, carved in stone, by a Peruvian President.

“Traditional democracies will end up in the garbage heap” – Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian President, 1998, VBQ p 37

Exactly a year before the Nigerian military, under General Abubakar Abdulsalami, handed the nation to a retired General Obasanjo, never known to believe in democracy, Fujimori, who had become President of Peru through a free and fair election, had embarked on turning his country into a dictatorship. The first step was to capture the parliament by buying or bullying the elected lawmakers. The second step consisted of weakening the judiciary and to pocket the Chief Justice. Thereafter, Fujimori could do whatever he wanted. He had campaigned as an anti-corruption crusader; and had started by getting several officials, including his immediate predecessor jailed – to loud sound of applause nationwide. By the time he embarked on criminal self-enrichment, there was no opposition left to stop him. Or, so he thought. Wait for how Fujimori ended his life.

Obasanjo wasted no time in 1999 to, first, capture the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and then other things. Like Fujimori, when interviewed by Christiana Amankpour of CNN, and asked about his priorities as President, Obasanjo’s reply was: “I will end poverty and fight corruption to a standstill”. History would recall that, during his administration’s eight years in office, poverty was not ended and corruption blossomed. It was under the government that $13-16 billion was allegedly taken from the Sovereign Trust Fund, STF, to increase Nigeria’s power supply to 10,000MW per day. That did not happen also; but, the money allegedly vanished without trace till today.

Read my book: PDP: CORRUPTION INCORPORATED, and discover how capturing the National Assembly, NASS, has made it possible for that administration to have got away with such monumental mismanagement of public funds and those in that government still walk around free – while self-righteously pointing accusing fingers at others.

Yar’Adua and Jonathan, God bless them both, being civilians, made no attempt to subjugate the NASS. To their everlasting glory, they allowed the lawmakers to operate as they should – with very little interference. With the benefit of hindsight, from the standpoint of corruption index, the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administrations represented our finest period since 1999. Was Nigeria totally free of corruption then? No. But, our return to democracy was still relatively fresh. We took for granted their respect for fundamental rights, freedom of the media and virtually non-interference in the affairs of the NASS. Political antagonists drew our collective attention to the alleged corruption in the governments. There was indeed corruption in them. Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, APC, capitalized on the pervasive discontent to launch the CHANGE agenda. We embraced the slogan; and trooped out to vote for Buhari. It was a monumental national blunder; which President Tinubu would later confirm.

“I always look very hard at any one who is above suspicion” – Agatha Christie, 1890-1976, VBQ p 238

“I inherited a country near bankruptcy” – President Tinubu, July 2025.

The world’s greatest female writer of crime novels warned us about people seemingly above reproach; I even wrote it down. Yet, I must confess, Buhari fooled me until his election in 2015. The camouflage was removed, and within days, the real Buhari began to reveal himself. Whoever said “the Devil you know is better than the Angel you don’t know” has a valid point. Buhari’s eight years proved the point. President Tinubu, under fire for the ruinous impact of his reform agenda in July last year, was forced to admit what most Nigerians already knew. The APC’s CHANGE agenda was leading Nigeria’s democracy towards “the dust bin of history”. Political expediency dictated that he (Tinubu) should not elaborate. How we reached near bankruptcy was not explained; and as long as Tinubu is president, Nigerians would never know how we arrived at this unhappy destination. Fortunately, there are footprints on the sands of Buhari’s time to help us.

The new government in 2015 also attempted NASS capture, ably supported by the APC’s National Leader – Tinubu. Senator Bukola Saraki and a few mavericks within the party staged a coup for the leadership and saved the NASS from early enslavement for four years. Second term was different; the Executive branch was prepared. The president produced a rubber stamp Senate President while the National Leader “donated” a rubber stamp Speaker of the House of Representatives. We saw what subsequently happened. The N30 trillion, removed from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, without NASS approval, accountability and records of disbursements by the Buhari government, could only have occurred in a democracy in which the Senate President and Speaker had absolutely ceased to perform their constitutional functions.

HOW CBN AND NIGERIA WERE BLED DRY BY BUHARI, 2019-2023

“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue” – De La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680.

The gold prize for hypocrisy, among Nigerian Heads of State, should go to Buhari; the silver to Obasanjo and the bronze to Abacha. In reality, out of the three former Generals, Abacha was the most honest. He never pretended to be anything but a thug in uniform.

The Buhari, who reported for work at Aso Rock as president, in 2015, might indeed have been a clone of the original, as some people have suggested. You can’t rule out anything in Nigeria. He was certainly different from the man who campaigned for our votes. Senator Bukola Saraki provided the checks and balances by refusing to be bought or bullied. His departure ended the checks and balances – which were the fundamental responsibilities of legislators. Let me quickly explain before ending the first part.

When future economic historians draw their attentions to the question of when Nigeria again entered into the second debt trap, the starting point must be the four years of Buhari’s second term. The N30 trillion raid of the CBN started soon after the swearing-in and there was no let up until the FG was forced to disclose to the NASS unconstitutional and impeachable offences committed all along. But the fault was not entirely Buhari’s. 

From 2018 to 2021, the Report of the Auditor-General of the Federation, AuGF, had drawn attention to unprecedented mismanagement of public funds by government officials running into trillions annually. The first, and mandatory recipients, are the president, the National Assembly, the Ministry of Justice and the CBN. Others, including busybodies like me, would pay for our own copies. Every year, my staff and I would analyse the audit queries and apply the Pareto Principle to the figures by focusing on the 20 per cent cases which accounted for 80 per cent of alleged mismanagement of public funds. The annual exercise was revealing.

First, by 2021, over N15 trillion was already unaccounted for by every branch of government, including the Presidency, CBN, NNPC, NASS, the Judiciary, EFCC, Armed Forces and the Police. Second, deeper analysis disclosed that CBN, NNPC and the Presidency were the major culprits. Some of the N30 trillion, illegally collected under Ways and Means, which Buhari, reluctantly announced in 2023, could be traced back to those years. Similarly, some of the N210 trillion for which the NNPCL allegedly failed to account had their origins in those locust years. Third, consequently, summons by various committees of the NASS were routinely ignored by the CBN, NNPCL and others. Finally, the Report of the AuGF, which in other democracies was taken seriously, was treated with contempt by the president and the NASS. Nigeria was racing furiously towards economic bankruptcy under the most corrupt government in our history.

THEN CAME TINUBU

“Standing on the foundation emplaced by the current administration, we shall…” – President Bola Tinubu, RENEWED HOPE Document, p 3

How anyone can stand on a foundation laid on quicksand and build anything enduring remains a mystery. Tinubu kept his words – including creating a rubber stamp NASS.

To be continued

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