With the conclusion of the 2023 general election, it is time to review what has happened to our democracy. Since 2015 we seem to be on a climb towards consolidating democracy. This sentiment is supported by the fact that we have completed for the first time a ‘democratic’ transition from one party to another. In Africa, democracy’s major challenge is for incumbents to be defeated and they go home peacefully. Nigeria achieved that in 2015. This achievement is not a trifle. Joseph Schumpeter considers it the essence of democracy. In his view, democracy is the reality that incumbents can be defeated, and they willingly go home. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, the reality is that attempts to defeat incumbents in elections have easily led to civil conflicts and the loss of democracy itself.

But this singular achievement, significant as it is, does not mask the fundamental flaws of Nigerian democracy. The practice of democracy in Nigeria leads objective assessors to the conclusion that Nigeria is not yet a democracy. If democracy is measured by free and fair elections that are grounded in protection for fundamental human rights and impartial working of state institutions, then Nigeria is not yet a democracy, in spite of the fact of party-to-party transition. Nigerian elections always fall far short of democratic quotients. Robert Dahl lists six conditions of democracy: effective participation, equality in voting, gaining enlightened understanding of public issues, exercising final control over the agenda and inclusion of adults. For there to be equality of votes, you must guarantee to citizens opportunities to freely form opinions, freely express those opinions and organize themselves publicly in defense of such opinions. Where there are legal or illegal prohibitions of the right to organize or where state authorities repress opponents of incumbents and confer advantages to incumbents, there is no free and fair election and no equality of voting.

Dahl admits that there is no ideal democracy where there is complete political equality yet argues that there must be sufficient institutionalization of these features in a polity to qualify as a democracy. To be a democracy it is not enough to have laws that promise citizens fundamental rights, or laws that declare equal citizenship. Those laws must be faithfully implemented. The reality of these rights and not their mere articulation in sacred texts and constitutional documents is the measure of democracy in a society.

This brings democracy closer to the rule of law. It is not a happenstance that there has been no truly democratic society that is not a rule of law society. Of course, we will continue to argue about the reality of the enjoyment of these rights as many members of the society are excluded, whether women and children, as in Athens, or women children and blacks in Antebellum United States. But until there is significant rule of law, democracy can never take shape. The struggles of many post-colonial African countries with democracy may be explained by their weakness institutionalising  the rule of law. Although these countries, like Nigeria, may have incorporated bill of rights in their constitutions, their politics lacks the effective checks and balances that undergird and define democracy. Democracy would be thoroughly lacking in a society where there is no separation between public and private spheres, where state institutions are normatively oriented to serve the political interests of the ruling elites and where the coercive force of the society is neither professionally managed nor diffused.

Democratic elections require that there is competition and contestation. Where there is monopoly of power or total control of state institutions, especially those that punish or reward, then there can be no competitive election in the real sense. If incumbents are not constrained by either administrative rules or by balance of force, it means that there would be no real competition and contestation. Therefore, there will be little prospect for effective participation and equal voting. This is the case with the 2023 general elections.

In the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly Elections, the election management body helped to rig the election for the incumbent political party by mysteriously shutting down the technological safeguard of transparent and credible election- the electronic transmission of result in real time. This undermined the integrity of the election results. Why would a commission that issued a regulation on electronic transmission of results and officially communicated to Nigerians and diplomatic community its commitment to follow through on the regulation now refused to activate that guarantee of transparency and credibility of results? In March 18 Governorship and House of Assembly Election, voters of Igbo ethnic descent were forcefully prevented from voting because the presidential candidate, the incumbent Governor of Lagos and his political surrogates accused Igbos of interfering in Lagos politics and mobilized the people to resist that. The Police did not intervene to protect the citizenship rights of Igbos.

The story above illustrates the truth of the insights from Robert Dahl who argued in his book, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, that democracy (polyarchy) is only possible where there is real contestation for power. There will be no contestation unless the institutions of coercion have internalized the norms of neutrality and professionalism or there is a diffusion of power such that no single person or group has overwhelming control of the economic or coercive power of the state. In the 2023 elections, we learnt a hard way that unless we can guarantee the professionalism of the security agencies and the election management body, that is ensure that they are operationally neutral of political and economic interests in the society, we cannot have any realistic prospect of having democratic election.

The rule of law approach to state building provides better perspectives to understand the failures we have suffered as a nation. Since the end of colonialism there has been a strong advocacy for democracy. The democratization movement has been largely a failure in some of the transitional and so-called emerging democracy. The problem is that democracy proponents have lost of the history democracy. Democracy is a struggle for equality. This struggle is practical but results in basic changes in law. The underlining institutions of democracy, the reason democracy works, are defined by transformations in law. Without the Magna Carta, with the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution and without the laws that expand the franchise to excluded persons, there would have been no democracy in the western democracy.

The law reform project failed in Nigeria and the rest of Africa as highlighted by Mamdani Mahmood and other African scholars. This failure, as Robert and Ann Seidman wisely noted, is the failure to use law to redefine the institutions of coercion and production and distribution in the post-colonial African states. Free and fair election requires that the security agencies are created and defined in a particular manner that guarantees that they are professional and neutral. Now professionalism and neutrality may sound like technical concepts. But they are first and foremost a matter of legal institutionalization. The manner the police, the election management body and other institutions that intervene in election matters deliver their mandates is the real determinant of free and fair election. The construction of these institutions in a manner that promote political equality is the essence of the rule of law.

After the shambolic 2007 presidential election, President Yar’Adua instituted a comprehensive review of the electoral system. This resulted in the radical propositions in the Justice Uwais report. The report was largely unimplemented. The proposals by Justice Uwais committee if fully and wisely implemented would have transformed the legal institution of elections in Nigeria. Those reforms that changed the legal relations in society are the heart of rule of law reform. As Professor Douglas North makes clear, institutions include all rules, procedures and humanly designed constraints and enablers of action. When we speak of the critical institutions of democracy, we mean those legal relationships in the society that prevent certain actions and mandate others. If such legal relations are wise, effective and make political equality a reality, then we are getting closers to democracy. If state governments can easily mobilize state institutions to work for them, then there is no rule of law. If rules and norms constrain them from so utilizing these institutions to terrorize their opponents, then that is a rule of law state that promotes electoral democracy. Rule of law has the dimension of substantial justice because it aims at the promoting civil and political as well as social economic rights of the people. If our laws do not actually protect these rights, then we cannot get to electoral democracy.

This invariably means that being truly a rule of law state precedes being a democratic state. If we don’t first ensure that our institutions work according to the principles of the rule of law, we cannot transition to democracy.

I hereby reproduce the Tribute I paid to Judge Bola Ajibola 5 years ago!

“Prince Bola Ajibola is a unique role model and his life is a study in academic brilliance, courage, perseverance, persistence, patience, patriotism, enterprise, focus, humility, selflessness, modesty, human decency and moral rectitude. A book for all ages and all generations! Bold, outspoken, courageous and kind hearted, Ajibola is one man whose door you knock with tears in your eyes and depart with smiles on your lips. His leadership and human relations skills are without compare and his patriotism and nationalism are beyond reproach.He takes his religion very seriously the same way he commits to humanity and services to both.”

This is a special tribute to a very special man. A very unusual man. A most under-celebrated icon of immense and immeasurable proportion. A man who towers well above several men and women who have unfortunately high-jacked national and international applause, much undeserved, to themselves.

I know many people may query my choice of the title for this tribute and may be wondering whether I was wishing Prince Bola Ajibola dead or insinuating that he had already collected his *Boarding Pass* to the other side of the *Continuum*. Far from it. It has always been my cardinal principle that people who are good should be told while alive and active that they are good, and those bad should be told so. Not elegies at the grave side which would be of no use to the dead.

One time Prime Minister of Canada Mr Jean Chretien was asked if he was bothered by what the press might write after his demise; the usually witty gentleman quipped “I won’t be there to read it!”

If one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, Michael Jackson had been shown the unprecedented love showered on him at his death, he would have died a happier man.

So, I declare that I wish Uncle Bola Ajibola more years of meritorious and active life in the service of Allah and humanity. He has not finished his mission. And he’s not about to by the special grace of Allah.

And those who may still be worried about my choice of title should find solace in the fact that I already drafted the pamphlet of the programme of proceedings for my funeral in addition to choosing the transparent plastic casket my remains would be cased in and the spot to be interred at my Ashi Bodija residence, whenever my body could no longer accommodate my *Breath of Life.*

Now back to our main subject. And I have *Wikipedia* as my reference:

Omoba Bolasodun Adesumbo «Bola» Ajibola KBE [The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire] (born March 22, 1934)[1] was an Attorney General and the Minister of Justice of Nigeria from 1985 to 1991 and a Judge of the International Court of Justice from 1991 to 1994.[2] He was president of the Nigerian Bar Association from 1984-85. He was also one of five commissioners on the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, organized through the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

Born on March 22, 1934 in Owu, near Abeokuta, Nigeria, to the Owu royal family[3] of Oba Abdul-Salam Ajibola Gbadela II, who was the traditional ruler of Owu between 1949 and 1972, Ajibola attended Owu Baptist Day School and Baptist Boys’ High School both in Abeokuta between 1942 and 1955. He obtained his bachelor›s degree in Law (LL.B) at the Holborn College of Law,University of London between 1959 and 1962 and was called to the English Bar at the Lincoln’s Inn in 1962. He returned to Nigeriato practice the Law, specializing in Commercial Law and International Arbitration.

He was the chairman of the panel set up by the Plateau State government to probe the 2008 Jos riots.[4][5] He established *CrescentUniversity* in 2005 in Nigeria which is an Islamic and co-educational institution.

I had wanted to write this tribute since 2005 when Judge Bola Ajibola was appointed the Chairman of the 50-member Ogun State Elders Consultative Forum in Abeokuta. I found in that appointment a confirmation of the esteem I have held Prince Ajibola when I met him in his very active and articulate days as the fire-brand President of the Nigerian Bar Association [NBA] [1984-1985].

Ogun State Elders Consultative Forum paraded heavyweights like emeritus Professor Theophilus O. Ogunlesi, Nigeria’s first professor of Medicine, Justice Sogbetun, Professor Akin Mabogunje, Sir Kessington Adebutu, Chief AA Degun, Professor Adebayo Adedeji, Apena Adebisi Macgregor, Dr Ona Soleye, Ambassador Koleoso, Professor Anthony Asiwaju, Chief Olu Okuboyejo, Professor Biyi Afonja, Ambassador Segun Olusola, Olori Yetunde Gbadebo, Asiwaju S A Onafowokan, Ayora Kuforiji-Olubi, Dr Lateef Adegbite and Dr Sunny Kuku [ the youngest of the group listed] who was chair of a sub-committee. I kept postponing and postponing.

*Then came Sunday August 12 and the Punch of that day spurred me to action.*

*In reporting the wonders performed by Islamic Mission for Africa Model College, Abeokuta, the Punch* wrote: Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice Prince Ajibola SAN has given glory to Almighty Allah on his immense joy at the overwhelming performance of excellence by the students of one of his educational establishments at the just concluded WAEC Examinations. Ajibola thanked God for strengthening him to have madeIMA International Model College happen and for the College’s feat which netted for it A1 parallel in Mathematics at the African standard examination. This is proof of Allah’s endorsement of the sacrifices of this global figure who served his fatherland as Minister for over six years without taking salary.

*The Crescent University* Abeokuta [CUAB] the peak of the educational establishments of the Olori Omo Oba of Owu Kingdom is today one leading private university in Nigeria with its excellent stride as ‘citadel of moral and academic excellence’ emphasized the Sunday Punch.

When *Crescent University* celebrated her 10th Anniversary [2005-2015] the elated Founder and Proprietor, former World Court Judge enthused: “This is a fulfilment of our dream of nurturing people of academic and moral uprightness in the sight of God”, adding “we do not want you [the students] to become educated beasts”.

The University which is a perfect reflection and image of its founder may be the country’s answer to all the problems facing other Nigerian universities. The University has never recorded a single day of strike or closure in the last twelve years and has not recorded a single case of cultism. From a humble beginning with accreditation in Banking and Finance the University now boasts over 20 accredited programmes with Colleges of Law, Social and Management Sciences, Natural and Applied Sciences, Information and Communication Sciences and Environmental Sciences topping the chart.

All these Prince Ajibola has accomplished without beating drums about them.
Because of his commitment to human capital development and enthronement of excellent morals in our youths Prince Ajibola sold virtually all he had to found the *Crescent University*.

I must add that Judge Ajibola is very rich in humour and jokes and if you do not want your ribs cracked up, you may be advised not to engage in dialectics with this bundle of wit, witticism, and syllogisms.

Brought up in the royal palace; dignity, royalty, elegance, comportment and decorum always ooze out of his usually well ironed agbada.

With contacts and connections all over the globe, and with a wide network of leaders of thought throughout Nigeria Judge Ajibola is at home in Kano as he is in Calabar and very much in good company as he is in Australia and in Austria.

Prince Bola Ajibola is a unique role model and his life is a study in academic brilliance, courage, perseverance, persistence, patience, patriotism, enterprise, focus, humility, selflessness, modesty, human decency and moral rectitude. A book for all ages and all generations!

Bold, outspoken, courageous and kind hearted, Ajibola is one man whose door you knock with tears in your eyes and depart with smiles on your lips. His leadership and human relations skills are without compare and his patriotism and nationalism are beyond reproach.

He takes his religion very seriously the same way he commits to humanity and services to both.

A man of unimpeachable integrity Judge Ajibola is one leader who would/could have pulled Nigeria out of its morass if he had turned his attention and immense talents and brilliance to politics. Unfortunately, Nigeria has no need for such an upright man who would not steal, would not lie, would not kill or get people killed for him and would not tamper with his female Ministers’ under pants!

The post-election conversations have been a putrid salad of prejudices, recriminations, and elevated provincialism. Our wits, resolve, temperance, capacitance, and stability threshold as a nation are being tested, and they will be tested further in the months and years ahead.

Our history is always ready ammunition to be dispatched in any ethnic combat in that ungoverned social media neighbourhood. Contending sides launch missiles from the war rooms with their own ‘’droppings’’ of history. I will not be a soundboard for those tiresome and unyielding conversations here. The duty of the citizen is to be a dispassionate arbiter, divining truth from untruth, and staying irrepressibly on the side of the nation’s interest. I believe instead of these contentions which re-emerge in our public discourse every now and then, we can learn from our past and forge a better country.

The truth is, history is subjective. Every group has their own version of history -- as regards their social and political existence in Nigeria. But we cannot keep recycling the epics of woes that have bogged us down as a people. We must move forward and look forward.

Nigeria’s past is not a very glossy one, yes. It is replete with tales of pain, sorrow, and blood – depending on who is telling the story. Fatal mistakes were made, but must we keep reliving the errors of our past? Are we doomed to remain a rendition of our past? Can we not move forward – beyond our past?

Nothing changes because the old ways remain the same. We must think a new Nigeria, and a new Nigeria begins with new progressive thinking. We cannot take a leap into a glorious future while we are still stuck in the rut of the past. Our past has become today’s pain, and tomorrow’s burden.

But does this imply we must abandon our history? Absolutely not. We embrace it, but learn from it as well, and stop repeating the same mistakes. The current confusion shows we have learnt nothing from our chequered history.

Our past should teach us to be respectful of one another; it should teach us caution; it should teach us tolerance; it should teach us understanding; it should teach discipline, and it should teach us the very essence of unity.

Like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, said to Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe: ‘’Let us understand our differences. I am a Muslim and a Northerner. You are a Christian, an Easterner. By understanding our differences, we can build unity in our country.”

We must manage our diversity with ‘’care, mutual respect, understanding, caution and trembling’’. We cannot discount our points of divergence, but we must also recognise that we have solid arcs of convergence. What unites us should be stronger than what divides us.

It is unfortunate that to reinforce prejudices, some deploy self-archived ahistorical accounts. Our past as a country should not be a springboard for hate exchanges, but a source of learning to forge a better country. We hold on to "history", whether manufactured or inverted, to accent our biases. Evolving means we are better than yesterday.

No one can hold their own version of history as truth everyone must chow down. There are villains and heroes in every story. It is depressing that our much-vaunted past has become stuff of propaganda passed down from one generation to another. Hate transitioning from one generation to another. We must break this circle of hostility.

Really, we cannot make progress as a country if we remain on this treadmill. We must sanitise our conversations, discard epithets, and evolve into a wholesome whole.

We must deconstruct revisionist fabrications and pretensions to make good of the future. Knowing that we started off on a shaky foundation should thrust us into consciously working out our destiny. We cannot hold on to an acrimonious past as a precedence for the present and the future. As I said previously, we take the lessons from the past and forge a new path.

We dissipate so much energy on ethnic bouts of supremacy but leave very little to interrogate fundamental issues of governance. We must make our existence as a nation about jutting issues that govern our lives as citizens – economy, security, education, and health.

In conclusion, it is insalubrious to ascribe the actions of deviants within a certain pool to any group. I have maintained this position since the wave of baleful propaganda against the Fulani. I will not deviate from the path of unity and peacebuilding no matter how perilous the road becomes.

The invidious and menacing enterprise of Peter Obi’s ‘’Obidients’’ has driven the dagger deep into the national umbilicus. Sore points quickened, passions inflamed, and bottled-up emotions unlatched.

First, we need to address the ‘’Obidient’’menace full-frontal, and we need to strengthen national and community concord. We need new ententes brokered for national cohesion or unity. We need to talk. We need to have those difficult conversations in civilised and decorous fora with a view to healing our nation. We need to talk with one another, not at each other.

We need new alliances cementing the north with the south, and the east with the west in holy matrimony. But to achieve this, we need to talk.

The aftermath of 2023 General Election, without a shadow of doubt, have exposed some politicians and “celebrities” who have been masquerading as patriots and objective intellectuals.

“But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”– Romans 2:8.

“The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel influences the way you act” (The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, 2002).

The internationally acclaimed Nigerian novelist and essayist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, wrote and published an utterly biased piece titled “Nigeria’s hollow Democracy,” without providing any material evidence for her reprehensible and repugnant illogical conclusion. The ludicrous piece under microscope is a display of profligate arrogance which is not borne out of patriotism but embedded in self-serving, self-seeking, Igbocentric, and myopic reluctance to accept her own shortcomings. The totality of the piece, indeed, expose her hollow view of humanity. What is the point of being a much-hyped internationally acclaimed Nigerian novelist when you cannot positively promote, or be a good ambassador of your country of birth where you had your first foretaste of this world? This subliminal fact is akin to allegiance and patriotism. It is of note that there are over 176,000 polling units across Nigeria. In Lagos State, there are approximately 13,500 polling units. The pertinent questions to ask is; What is the percentage of the polling units where violence and malpractices actually occurred?

The unpalatable fact of the 2023 General Election is that the winner, Bola Tinubu, won in 12 States, Atiku Abubakar also won in 12 States, Peter Obi won in 11 States. In numerical strength, Bola Tinubu of All Progressive Congress (APC) scored 8,794,726 votes and came first, Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 6,984,520 votes and came second, Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) scored 6,202,533 votes and came third, and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) scored 1,496,687 votes and placed 4th. If Chimamanda genuinely have any issues with these election results, she should have directed her letter to our President, Muhammad Buhari, or wait for the Supreme Court final verdict.

It is also doleful that a perceptible writer would advertently, through measured actions, seek to damage our international reputation and heighten the negative perception and downbeat narratives about Nigeria and Nigerians. This preposterous act of national betrayal is not some sort of magical intervention or revolution, it is insane to diminish your Country and fellow citizens because of bread crumbs and half-baked endorsement. This is exactly what her letter to the United States President amount to. At what point do we end our colonial mentality and adoration of foreigners?  A rational mind need to be cognizant of the fact that you do not demean your country and then hope to swim in celebrated honour. Eniti o ba ta arale e lopo, kole ri ra lowon.

As an impenitent Igbo woman, Chimamanda Ngozi is Igbocentric in all ramifications. I am constrained to remind her and other cohorts that the same Igbocentric mentality led to the devastated January 15, 1966 Coup d’état perpetrated by a number of Nigerian military officers of Igbo extraction, largely driven by mortification tendency, visceral hatred, and ethnicity-based agenda. The malignant ordnance act destabilized Nigeria and eclipsed the country for more than 50 years. We have also witnessed some primordial belligerence and pugnaciousness exhibited by some of her kinsmen. An Igbo leader, Eze Igbo of Ajao Estate in Lagos, threatened to mobilize and invite members of the proscribed IPOB to Lagos State. The Eze Igbo is now cooling off in DSS custody. Another kinsman overtly called the Yoruba’s “political rascals”. You exhibit malignancy at any slight opportunity while consciously attempting to ignite waning flames, yet you are desperate to rule Nigeria. With this deep-seated ethnocentric mentality, it will take a monumental supernatural occurrence to rule Nigeria again.

As overtly stated in my recent piece, there is no region or tribe in Nigeria that has the monopoly of bigotry and visceral hatred. The South East and South South are not the only composition of Nigeria, there are other four geo-political Zones meaning that Nigeria is a vast country with different idiosyncratic culture, religion and tradition, and blessed with natural resources and human capital by virtue of population and geographical size.

As virtuous citizens, lets encourage Chimamanda Adichie to concentrate on her perpetual hollow hairstyles and fictional storytelling, that is her calling.

Femi Amosun is a UK-based management professional and politico-economic analyst with distinctive zeal for sustainable development through responsible governance and accountability.