Babatunde Fashola, a former Lagos state governor and minister, has described Nigeria’s contemporary democracy as the result of dictatorship rather than citizens’ free will.
Fashola spoke on Wednesday at The Platform Nigeria, a programme organized by Covenant Nation, a Lagos-based church, to commemorate 2024 Democracy Day.
Themed ‘Democracy and Free Market,’ Fashola also stated that the military inaugurated the present privatisation of most enterprises in the country with Decree No. 25 of 1988, which was later changed in 1999 and known as the Privatisation and Commercialisation Decree.
Fashola, who did not elaborate on his position, stated that Nigerians did not vote in the election that resulted in Nigeria’s first democratic president.
“I’ll start my lecture by discussing June 12. Until 1993, June 12 was just another day because of how people voted and what happened. And that was an election that cut over all of our traditional lines of difference.
“Suddenly, it became an election in which people were willing to give anything to save. Lives were lost. Even Nigeria’s elites agreed that we would pay whatever price for this election, and many did.
“Symbols heralded the hope that the election promised. Late Abiola was the elixir that kept the quest and agitation for the actualization of June 12 going.
“Clearly, the reason we are gathered here today did not arise from free will. It emerged from an authoritarian environment. Our democratic experience was shaped by dictatorship rather than something we choose to engage in freely. Dictatorial measures resulted in the creation of what we now commemorate 25 years later.
“However, there is a coincidence. It is true that when we talk about democracy and the concept of a free market, Nigeria’s free market was also initiated by the military.
“This may surprise some of us. And I point out that there is a decree called Decree No. 25 of 1988, which was later changed in 1999 and is known as the Privatisation and Commercialisation Decree. “That is where our journey to a free market began,” he explained.
