Nigeria since 1999: When will the years begin to count? By Dakuku Peterside
Think of a Nigerian born in 1999, the year civilian rule came back. That person is twenty-seven now. They have never lived under a military government. But they may have finished school and not found a job. They have probably learned to plan trips around insecurity, and they almost certainly run a generator at home. Democracy has been part of their whole lives. Whether it has given them any real say over that life is another matter. That is Nigeria’s Fourth Republic: civilian government has lasted, but citizens’ power over it remains uncertain. We count elections and anniversaries. We should count how often institutions protect people, public money becomes public benefit, and abuses of power carry consequences.
Continuity matters. Soldiers cut short earlier republics. Since 1999, civilian rule has survived successive handovers, including 2015, when President Goodluck Jonathan lost and conceded. But survival is the beginning of democratic development, not proof of its completion. Continuity means civilian rule keeps going. Consolidation means its limits hold. Presidents accept restraint. Opposition parties compete. Judges rule without intimidation. Citizens obtain justice without a godfather. Democracy matures when these protections survive powerful people’s attempts to override them. Time alone cannot achieve that. Institutions can grow older without growing stronger. Elections may teach politicians to respect competition, or to manipulate it better. That is the continuity trap. A system that rewards insiders gives them little reason to change it. Politicians who benefit from expensive nomination forms, opaque campaign funding, and weak oversight have scant incentive to widen access. Each election that renews their influence confirms the arrangement works. What citizens experience as dysfunction, insiders regard as a successful bargain.
That explains our abundant politics and shortage of service. Parties organise lavish conventions while hospitals lack medicines. Legislatures approve budgets while communities cannot identify contractors behind abandoned projects. Renewing power receives more attention than making it answerable. Institutions should correct this imbalance. Their independence has a practical test: can they act when doing so inconveniences those who appoint or fund them? The 2023 presidential election exposed the stakes. Results appeared on INEC’s Results Viewing Portal later than expected. European Union observers reported that upload failures and poor communication weakened trust. This did not itself establish fraud. It made verification harder. Courts legitimately resolve disputes, but litigation cannot replace an electoral process voters can check.
Distrust discourages participation. Yet organised political machines do not withdraw alongside disappointed citizens. Staying home can strengthen the networks people distrust. Rebuilding confidence and sustaining participation go hand in hand. Democracy must also mean something in daily life. For parents choosing between food and school fees, or farmers afraid to reach their land, security and functioning services give citizenship substance. Hardship does not invalidate elected government. Difficult reforms, however, require honest explanation, fair burdens and protection for vulnerable households. The 2023 Naira redesign illustrates this. President Muhammadu Buhari acknowledged implementation difficulties in his February broadcast. The shortage of usable cash exposed the distance between official timetables and people’s capacity to cope. Reform must work for someone buying food or keeping a small business open. Leaders asking citizens to sacrifice should curb their own excesses and correct policies that fail.
The “japa” debate reflects this crisis of confidence. Patriotic appeals cannot make staying worthwhile. Safety, opportunity and institutions that reward effort fairly can. Parties need open finances, credible internal contests and clear programmes. Women, young people and candidates without wealthy sponsors need realistic routes into office. Ethnic loyalty must not shield poor performance. Bringing power closer to citizens also requires safeguards: governors can abuse authority too. The Second Niger Bridge, commissioned in May 2023, shows that civilian government can deliver substantial infrastructure. The lesson is to make completion routine and maintenance dependable. Two reform demands follow. First, require publication of polling-unit result images and collation records within statutory deadlines, with documented procedures for technical failures. INEC should publish independent technical audits after elections. Breaches should attract enforceable sanctions, subject to due process.
Second, give every federally funded capital project a public identifier linking its appropriation, contractor, value, payments and independently verified completion status. Publish these records quarterly on a searchable portal, with penalties for withholding or falsifying information. These measures give citizens evidence to challenge official claims between elections. Authoritarian rule offers no dependable shortcut: removing scrutiny removes tools for correcting failure. Leaders must accept safeguards that constrain them, and citizens must defend those safeguards when their preferred party governs. The generation born in 1999 deserves more than a life without soldiers in power. It deserves a government it can influence, institutions it can trust, and a country where hard work leads to a real future. We should judge the next Democracy Day by how far we have moved towards that. Nigeria has kept the clock running. Now it must make the years count.
•Dr Peterside, a leadership and management expert, wrote Leading in a Storm.
The post Nigeria since 1999: When will the years begin to count? By Dakuku Peterside appeared first on Vanguard News.
This post was originally published on this site
