Democracy On Trial: How Awolowo Reacted To 1983 Sokoto Unsettling News About Democratic Somersault—Folu Olamiti

Democracy On Trial

 

 

OpenLife News reports that in an  Opinion, Olu Olamiti, a distinguished veteran Nigerian journalist, media executive, author, and Knight of the Anglican Communion who served as Nigerian Tribune’s  Executive Director of Publications and later Managing Director, exposes the rot in Nigeria’s democracy, using the lens of recently held 22nd All Nigeria Editors Conference in Enugu

Democracy was placed on trial in Enugu on Thursday at the opening of the 22nd All Nigeria Editors Conference, and the searchlight on the ballot, the courts and the media reminded me of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s reaction to an unsettling news in Sokoto in 1983.

The conference theme is “The Ballot, the Media and the Task of Keeping Democracy Alive.”The first paper, “Election Petitions in the Digital Age: Independence, Evidence, BVAS and the Courts,” was delivered by Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN.

He dissected the complex relationship between technology, election disputes and judicial intervention, putting INEC, the judiciary and the electorate on the spot over the credibility of elections.Then came Prof. Pat Utomi. His intervention was brief but unsettling.

He warned that the democratic Eldorado Nigerians once looked up to was gradually disappearing before our eyes.His warning sent me back to 1983.

I was with Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Sokoto during the electioneering campaign. We were at lunch when the 4 p.m. Network News on Radio Nigeria interrupted us.

The bulletin suggested that the best candidate would not win the election. Awolowo, then a leading presidential candidate, was the obvious target.Papa did not show anger.

He listened calmly and dismissed it with a wry smile.”What a funny news,” he said.But his next words were profound and prophetic.”I can foresee disrespect for the rule of law while impunity reigns. Nigerians may for long forget true meaning of democracy,” Awolowo said.

That was 43 years ago. At Enugu, Utomi was saying almost the same thing.

Nigeria got independence 66 years ago but our democratic journey has been repeatedly interrupted by military coups, suspension of constitutions and authoritarian rule.

The military did not just take power; they ruled by decrees and distorted our institutions.Democracy became a baton passed from one military regime to another through coups before it returned to civilian hands in 1999.

Yet the culture of impunity survived the uniforms.Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua tried to restore constitutionalism and respect for the rule of law, but the forces that benefited from the old order proved difficult to dislodge. His presidency was cut short by illness and death.

Today, we hold elections, inaugurate governments, and courts give judgments, but democracy is more than the ritual of voting.

It requires institutions that can say no to power, elections where votes count, parties with internal democracy, courts trusted by winners and losers, and a media that can scrutinise power without fear.

That is the task before editors gathered in Enugu.

The media cannot keep democracy alive by merely reporting results. It must interrogate how those results are produced, the institutions that certify them, and the conduct of those in power.

If votes are undermined by manipulation and impunity, and if violators of public trust simply defect to the ruling party and get rehabilitated, democracy becomes a shell.

The danger is not that democracy will disappear overnight, but that citizens will get used to its slow erosion. That was Awolowo’s fear in Sokoto in 1983, and that was Utomi’s warning in Enugu in 2026.

A democracy does not die only when soldiers seize power. It also withers when the rule of law becomes selective and when citizens no longer believe the ballot can bring change.

The Enugu conference has put Nigerian democracy on trial.

The verdict will not be delivered by editors, but by the conduct of leaders, the independence of institutions, the courage of the media and the vigilance of citizens to choose the rule of law over the convenience of impunity.