Daniel Fagunwa, in his allegorical masterpiece Ìrìnkèrindò Nínú Igbó Elégbèje, introduced us to Gongosu of Edidare – a ruler who governed with pomp but no purpose, who made decrees that defied logic, and who surrounded himself with sycophants who mistook incompetence for charisma. His people cheered not because they believed, but because they had forgotten how to think.
Nigeria today is Edidare writ large. And Gongosu’s children now sit in our council chambers, our courts, and our electoral commissions. Fagunwa’s forest was filled with creatures who spoke in riddles, danced in circles, and mistook noise for wisdom. Nigeria’s political class is no different. They govern with grammar, subterfuge, and gimmicks. They build flyovers to nowhere. They declare public holidays for political rallies. They sponsor bills to regulate social media while ignoring the collapse of public schools. They appoint thousands of aides who cannot access the “big man”, yet drain the public purse with titles as bloated as the budgets they bleed.
They are Gongosu’s children. And we, the people, have allowed it. A Gongosu-style dramaturgy where the actors are loud, the scripts incoherent, and the audience too exhausted to demand a refund for the social contract they entered. Locals call it “one-chance”.
Today is September 15 – World Democracy Day. Across continents, nations are taking stock of their democratic health, measuring the pulse of their institutions, the strength of their civic freedoms, and the fidelity of their governments to the will of the people. But here in Nigeria, the mood is different. Our Democracy Day is June 12. By simple arithmetic, this is either three months early or nine months late – a metaphor for our national calendar of contradictions and absurdities.
It is not just a scheduling anomaly. It is a metaphor. A sad reminder that while others celebrate democracy as a living system, we mark it as a ceremonial ghost – draped in borrowed robes, paraded with pomp, but hollow at the core. Globally, democracy is measured by representation, rights, rule of law, and participation. Nigeria scores 0.487 on the Global State of Democracy Index – ranking 95th out of 113 countries. We are classified as a hybrid regime, not a full democracy. Our elections are marred by irregularities. Our courts are politicised. Our civic space is shrinking. Our voter turnout in 2023 was a record-low 27 per cent. The people are not apathetic – they are disillusioned.
Take the case of Hudu Yunusa-Ari, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State. On April 15, 2023, he did the unthinkable: declared a winner in the governorship election while collation was still underway. Aisha Binani of the APC was crowned in a bizarre, premature announcement that defied both logic and law. INEC suspended him. The nation gasped. But justice? Justice went on sabbatical. As of today, Yunusa-Ari has not faced trial. He walks free – a symbol of impunity in a system that rewards audacity over accountability.
And then there’s Imo State, where the Supreme Court in 2020 declared Hope Uzodinma governor – even though he came fourth in the actual election. The ruling hinged on “excluded votes”, a legal sleight of hand that defied mathematics, algebra, and insulted common sense. The ballots of over five million citizens were effectively nullified by hand-picked judges in a courtroom. Democracy, in this instance, was not about the people. It was about the paperwork.
It was worse after the first election that ushered in civilian rule after the annulled June 12 election. Today, the architect of that misadventure has written a hollow account of the episode and raked in more money than the Federal Inland Revenue in one day. Obasanjo, too, did everything humanly possible to slander democracy and garbed it in borrowed robes called civilian-to-civilian transition. He nearly succeeded in his third-term agenda.
Rivers State offers another absurd chapter. In 2007, Celestine Omehia became governor without contesting the primaries. He was not the party’s candidate. He was not on the ballot. Yet, through a judicial twist, he ascended to power. Years later, the Supreme Court reversed the decision, but not before Omehia had spent months in office, drawn salaries, and enjoyed the privileges of a mandate he never earned. No consequences. No restitution. Just another footnote in Nigeria’s book of democratic distortions.
The list is long. In Osun, Olagunsoye Oyinlola governed for nearly three years before the courts declared Rauf Aregbesola the rightful winner. In Ekiti, Segun Oni held office for three years before Kayode Fayemi reclaimed his mandate. In Edo, Oserheimen Osunbor ruled for 18 months before Adams Oshiomhole took over. Ngige-Obi’s Anambra debacle was a spectacle. You can fill in the gaps in your local constituencies and senatorial districts. These men – and in some cases, women – were paid from the public purse, enjoyed security votes, and wielded power they never deserved. The electoral calendar was shattered. These states now hold off-season elections, creating logistical chaos and voter fatigue. Democracy was not restored – it was merely rescheduled in these circumstances.
What kind of system allows this? What kind of democracy permits the mandate of millions to be overturned by a panel of judges as if it were an inter-school debate? What kind of republic pays salaries to men and women who were never elected, then shrugs when asked for accountability?
But the tragedy does not end in the courtroom. It deepens in the corridors of power, especially in the twilight of gubernatorial tenures. Across the country, governors are not winding down. They are winding up. Not with policy legacies or institutional reforms, but with last-minute appointments, strategic purges, and subterranean rituals.
Special advisers. Senior special assistants. Political assistants. Technical consultants. Titles as inflated as the egos they serve. These appointments are not about service delivery. They are about coveting loyalty through arm-twisting. About lining up foot soldiers for the primaries that are months away. About building a firewall against dissent. Those considered disloyal are quietly dropped, their names erased from the corridors of power like chalk from a blackboard. It is not governance. It is succession planning by subterfuge.
In some states, the desperation has taken a darker, eerie turn. Reports have emerged of governors and aspirants taking traditional oaths – rituals cloaked in secrecy, whispered in shrines, sealed with blood and incantations. A reincarnation of what happened in Ogun State in 2010 is, again, the talk of the town. Ijebuland has become the epicentre of these stories. Reputed – or perhaps notorious – for its deep-rooted traditions, the region is said to host political pilgrimages where allegiance is sworn not to the people, but to the gods of power.
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