Is Nigeria Actually Democratic? Let's Talk

A few days ago, the world marked the International Day of Democracy.

You probably scrolled past a post about it on X, perhaps a quote from an official celebrating Nigeria's democratic journey. And somewhere in your head, a small voice might have asked,

"Wait, are we actually democratic?"

Let's not rush past that question. Sit with it for a second.

Democracy on paper is easy to point to. We vote. We have a constitution.

We have three arms of government that are technically separate. Tick, tick, tick.

But democracy was never supposed to be something only done once every four years and then forgotten about until the next election. It is supposed to be something you can feel in the small decisions too.

Here is the real question, and I actually want you to answer it in your head before you keep reading.

When was the last time a decision that affects your daily life, fuel prices, electricity tariffs, minimum wage, got made with your interests genuinely at the centre of it, not just announced to you afterwards as something already settled?

Take your time. I will wait.

If your honest answer is "I cannot remember," that is not a small thing! That is the whole argument, right there.

Democracy asks that citizens be equal before the law. It asks that you can object loudly and publicly, without wondering if you will become the next name on a list somewhere.

And it asks that the people making decisions for you are actually willing to answer for those decisions when they go wrong.

Now think about October 2020.

Young Nigerians did exactly what democracy says they are allowed to do. They gathered peacefully, waved the flag, and sang the same anthem taught in every school. At Lekki Toll Gate, that gathering was met with gunfire.

A Lagos State judicial panel later described the incident as a “massacre in context.” In July 2024, the ECOWAS Court of Justice found Nigeria responsible for serious human-rights violations arising from the Lekki Toll Gate incident.

Read that again slowly. The freedom to object was tested, in real time, and the response was bullets, then a report, then silence.

That is the real test of whether a democracy is genuine, and Nigeria's answer to it is still sitting there, unresolved, more than five years on.

Now, to be fair to the other side of this conversation happening in your head, because I know it is happening. Elections do take place here. In 2015, a sitting president lost and actually conceded, which is not a small thing in this part of the world. Courts still occasionally rule against the government and win. People still post, still protest, still organise, even after everything. That counts for something, and I am not going to pretend it does not.

You can hold elections, run courts, and print a constitution, and still have citizens who are afraid to speak freely, leaders who rarely answer for failure, and decisions made about ordinary people without ordinary people anywhere in the room.

So, back to the question that started all this. Are we truly democratic, or are we just very good at holding the elections part?

I am not going to answer that for you.

What happens in the years between the votes?