EDITORIAL: Tinubu’s government: Sliding towards dictatorship

In the last few weeks, serial anti-democratic indications have reinforced public concerns about the creeping dictatorship in the 16-month administration of President Bola Tinubu. Democracy and dictatorship, as we know, are alien to each other. Nigeria has no fertile ground for their fusion. As a matter of fact, nothing could be more subversive than a hybrid of the two.

Two weeks ago, Nigerians were dismayed by the visit of operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) to the offices of Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in search of some of its directors. It came across as an overt act of intimidation and harassment, which we believe could constrict the civic space.

This came in the wake of SERAP’s condemnation of the shenanigans perpetrated by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), which have sustained fuel scarcity and the astronomical price range of a litre of petrol across the country.

A whopping sum of over $25 billion spent on the maintenance of the nation’s four refineries since 1999, have not produced any positive outcome, resulting in the crippling of businesses and transport fares going beyond the reach of the common man. It is one of the worst acts of economic sabotage against Nigeria.

SERAP had, as a result of all this, called on President Tinubu to use his “leadership position and good offices to direct the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to reverse” the high and official N855 fuel pump price per litre, to the old pump price of N600. The nationwide hunger protesters had also made a similar demand in August.

Still, SSS operatives doubled down on 9 September, with the arrest of the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on his way to the United Kingdom to attend the World Trade Union Congress. He was billed to deliver an address at the event, which never was. His passport was seized.

NLC President, Joe Ajaero

A few weeks earlier, Ajaero had been detained over alleged treasonable felony, terrorism financing, criminal conspiracy and cybercrime charges by the police. He was quizzed and later released as organised labour bristled for a nationwide showdown. His ordeal was part of the clampdown on those suspected to have played a role in the #EndBadGovernance protests that rocked the country in August, driven by mass hunger, poverty and the escalating cost of living.

A new price template of fuel issued by NNPCL, following its bulk-purchase of fuel from Dangote Refinery last week, has not helped matters either. The official pump price of a litre is as high as N1,019 per litre in Borno State. It goes for N950 per litre in many places in Lagos, and N992 in Abuja. Many marketers indulge in price gouging, a form of greed that is not likely to abate with the recent turn of events.

Ajaero might have been lucky to escape being charged to court. But 10 others were not. Temporary relief came their way on 11 September, when a Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Emeka Nwite, granted them bail in the sum of N10 million each.

The regime’s authoritarian fangs have not spared the media either. In February, Dele Fasan, the bureau chief of Galaxy Television, was arrested and placed in handcuffs by soldiers for recording a video of the labour’s protest in Uvwie, Warri, over economic hardship. Madu Onuorah, publisher of Global Upfront; Daniel Ojukwu of Foundation for Investigative Journalism; Dayo Aiyetan, executive director, International Centre for Investigative Journalism; Nurudeen Akwasika and Adejuwon Soyinka have all tasted the obnoxious bitter pill of media repression on Tinubu’s watch.

A PREMIUM TIMES reporter, Abdulkareem Mojeed, and three of his colleagues from other media organisations, escaped death by a whisker in August. His car was riddled with bullet shots fired by the police during the #EndBadGovernance protest at Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja. This venue, on the outskirts of the city, was sanctioned by the court for the protest.

Firing live ammunition at innocent and non-violent protesters is a premeditated attempt at killing or maiming, and it is not in accord with modern policing and respect for the sanctity of life and human rights.

These anomalies have not gone unnoticed by the Freedom Index of the global watchdog – Reporters without Borders, which tagged Nigeria, late in 2023, as one of West Africa’s most dangerous and difficult countries for journalists, who are often monitored, attacked and arbitrarily arrested.

Tinubu’s government should be well aware of this fact: any effort to shrink the civic space, or manacle the media in any form is a reckless adventure that would be dead on arrival. The freedom of speech, association and the press are guaranteed rights in Sections 39 (1) and 40 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

Our statutes have penal provisions, with which cases of errant media conduct could be treated. Therefore, the resort to self-help in arrests, brute force and detention of media practitioners are extra-legal and unconstitutional. PREMIUM TIMES categorically condemns these tendencies.

Perhaps the most offensive of the regime’s vile behaviour was the Counter Subversive Bill 2024 recently sponsored in the House of Representatives by its Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas. It sought to criminalise citizens’ abuse of politicians, protests, or what it described as unlawful procession, among other purported offences, with penalties ranging from five to 10-year jail terms; and N2 million to N5 million fines. This was akin to Decree 4 of 1984 (Protection Against False Accusation) of the military regime at the time.

Public fulminations against Abbas’ initiative led to its withdrawal. To conceive such an idea in a democracy was bad enough, but to brazenly push it to the extent that it went, was absolute recklessness in governance and a howler for a purported progressive-minded government. The same parliamentary intolerance of criticism of the administration produced a victim in Ali Ndume in July, when he was removed as the Senate’s Chief Whip.

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It is ironic that Tinubu, who rose to political prominence through activism or protests against bad governance – whether by the military, or the democratic government of Goodluck Jonathan, as evident in the 2012 protest, when an attempt was made to remove fuel subsidy – is showing utter indifference to these unhinged anti-democratic forces running riot. As one of the Argonauts of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) that fought the Sani Abacha’s military regime to a standstill, he was charged for treason in 1994. But he fled the country.

As one group observed, the Tinubu government “Is making political prisoners of anyone brave enough to speak out.” PREMIUM TIMES denounces these recurrences, which are emblematic of military dictatorship. They should stop.

With government’s apparent lack of transparency and accountability in managing the country’s oil resources, public officials’ ostentatious lifestyles at the taxpayers’ expenses, no level of Gestapo antics will silence the growing public dissent that has sprouted from the badly executed fuel subsidy removal and forex market deregulation policies, which have culminated in national misery and frustration.

Impunity in a democracy, we warn, will always meet its match in popular disapproval here.