Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has said that despite the end of military rule more than a decade ago, the culture of political intolerance and impunity still pervades the country. The former vice-president, who was speaking in Switzerland as a guest speaker of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations on Monday, regretted that in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, opposition members were treated as enemies of the state.
In his paper entitled, ‘Deepening Democracy in Nigeria: Implications for Africa,’ Abubakar said as a result of such lip service to democratic principles, “disregard for rules and regulations and the utter impunity with which they are committed,” have led to what he called “the militarisation of democracy.”
According to him, many retired military chiefs, who came into power as politicians entered the democratic arena without being able to shed their military mindsets, thereby exacerbating the culture of intolerance and entrenching impunity, which characterised today’s political reality in Nigeria.
He, however, admitted that despite these democratic challenges, the freedom of speech, of association, of the right to organise politically and the liberty to criticise the government were restored with the return of democratic rule.
Atiku also acknowledged that with the new democratic order in Nigeria, the courts in the country were more relatively independent, in addition to freedom of the press that came with it.
However, the former vice-president regretted that these democratic gains were being threatened by the persistent perception of political opposition as an enemy that had to be crushed “rather than patriots who happen to disagree simply because they hold different political views.”
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