Nigeria’s Wavering Freedom of Speech -By Sani Muhammad Uzairu

Before March 2018, I made a weekly appearance on Cool 96.5 fm, Kano to contribute to national discourse, but when concerns heightened about my safety, I embarked on a self-imposed hiatus. Today, however, I feel a sense of national duty to return to public discourse because a time has come when silence is never golden.

The dominant recent story has been the steady decline of a critical mass in Nigeria, a process that has accelerated over the past four years, making the country retreat from records of relatively impressive democracies even as it falls short of registering gains for civil liberties as its violent insurgencies and kidnappings continue unabated, despite counter-claims by state apparatchiks.

This is sad given that Nigeria, notable for military juntas and caudillo rule, underwent a historic transformation in 1999 that practically left it with a freely elected government and a civic environment in which an array of liberties were respected. Over the past few years, however, the commitment of government to democratic standards has wavered, in some cases considerably.

Significantly, the observance of freedom of association, including the treatment of nongovernmental organizations, freedom of assembly, and the ability of workers to engage in union activity recorded the sharpest regression. The other important setbacks occurred in electoral process, political pluralism and participation, and freedom of expression and belief.

The record of this decline provides a revealing picture of the strategy of governments that are either tolerating the erosion of democratic institutions or—more disturbingly—deliberately undermining freedom in order to marginalize potential sources of political opposition. Thus:
1. The decline in freedom of association reflects the growing determination of autocratic-leaning leaders to neuter civil society organizations, especially those with political or quasi-political agendas. With traditional political parties weakened through internal decay or regime pressure, the locus of serious opposition is increasingly found outside the parties and within civil society. Present crop of leaders in Nigeria are working to smother these sources of organized criticism, much as they have done to the old party structures.
2. While opposition political parties have often contributed to their own decline, aggressive actions meant to tilt the field in the regime’s favor represent a threat to electoral competitiveness in Nigeria.
3. The press has become a principal target of left-populist leaders. Their tactics include a great expansion of state-controlled media, the use of punitive libel laws to silence critics, the abuse of licensing powers to threaten or shut down critical media, and the introduction of antimonopoly laws that force opposition press owners to surrender control of outlets.
And there is much to deplore in the prevailing situation. Today, in a country that seemed to have finally escaped the leader-for-life phenomenon, new aspirants to lifetime leadership status have now emerged. The drive by more autocratically leaning president to thoroughly control and politicize the judiciary is woefully appalling. As recent experience demonstrates, a pliant judiciary opens the way for corruption and political control of elections, the press, the economy, and civil society.

Freedom in Nigeria is wavering, not in deep decline. But the wavering should concern us all, and especially this time when Nigeria is synonymous with state violence, political extremism and injustice. Yet to reiterate a point, democracy, while under pressure, remains the norm in Nigeria.

Sani Muhammad Uzairu is a freelancer, public affairs commentator and a promoter of public service journalism.