2 March 2018
In recent times, despite the fact that we are under a democratic dispensation, there has been a seeming militarization of the political space, by the incumbent political administration at the centre.
The scope for human freedom has been reduced, the government of the day complains about hate speech but it is, ironically, the main author of hate language against the same people whose welfare and security it is supposed to safeguard.
It is a government that is intolerant of the opposition and which has shown an inordinate capacity for malice, hypocrisy, and intimidation.
This more or less sets the tone for everything else. This is the reason it has lost so much goodwill and why many of its committed supporters who dreamt of its potential messianism are regretting their own initial optimism.
The last time Nigerians found themselves under this kind of siege was under military rule, and particularly under the rule of the same man who is now Nigeria’s incumbent President, a soldier turned civilian President.
The militarization of the state in whatever form, compromises democratic ethos. We are in a democracy but the relevant institutions seem to be in disarray. The executive is at loggerheads with the legislature in Abuja. The judiciary has been harassed so much many of its members have been accused of corruption and thrown into the dock or disgraced out of service.
We are therefore, in a local season of McCarthyism whereby every possible opposition figure is labeled a witch, a thief, and harassed or blackmailed.
The only saints in Nigeria at the moment are those who join the ruling party, or who go to great lengths to heap the blame for all problems on the immediate past administration. In this typical season of opportunism and sycophancy, saints may become devils and vice versa, throwing the country into the vortex of a moral turpitude.
Ruben Abati is a former presidential media aide during the Goodluck Jonathan administration
