Nigerian experts who have served the country in various capacities have dissected the challenges confronting democracy in Nigeria, as they proffer solutions to having true democracy and strong institutions in the country. These Nigerians, including legal practitioners, electoral and security personnels were panelists who discussed on various aspects of a paper, entitled, “The imperative of strong institutions as enablers of democracy,” delivered by Very Rev. Fr. (Prof.) Anthony Akinwale during the 2025 annual conference of the National Association of Catholic Lawyers, Archdiocese of Lagos, held recently at The Zone, Gbagada, Lagos.
Speaking on the tragic paradox of electoral rule to authoritarianism, Mrs. Titilola Akinlawon, SAN, said a good number of enlightened Nigerians do not participate at elections because they do not want to subject themselves to the rigours of queuing up, during the exercise. According to Akinlawon, “We leave it to the hands of those people that do not even understand the whole essence of the elections. Those people that they would have settled by stomach infrastructure. She said to have strong democracy and institutions, the people that are going to man those institutions have to man the institutions, as well as the society have to be morally upright.
Hon. Justice Mathias Dawodu, Judge of High Court, Lagos State, speaking on the role of the judiciary in safeguarding democracy, said the Nigerian constitution is strong and is enough to have a proper democratic society, stating that the problem is how people interpret the constitution. He noted that the functions of the judiciary are to settle all kinds of disputes, and most importantly, interpretation of statutes of the constitution. He however deduced the problem of Nigerian judiciary currently as that of interpretation of the laws. According to Dawodu, “The problem we have in Nigeria today, if you look at it, if you judge, it’s that people are writing the law.
That’s why when you look at TV, you have two judges saying two different things and they are interpreting a particular section, but they are saying different things. “The challenges faced by the judiciary makes it practically impossible to function. From the citizen’s point of view, the judiciary is the most important organ of the government and society, because it acts as their protector against the possible excesses of legislature and executive organs. At the same time, serves as ultimate recourse for the enforcement of the citizens’ rights. “In the face of challenges, expecting or seeing the judiciary as an institution is very, very tough. And what are these challenges? The very first one is lack of independence of financial autonomy.”
Mr. Lubirous Oshoma, Public Interest Lawyer, said the world has diversified into a knowledge-based economy and Nigeria needs this too to have strong democracy and institutions. He said, “It boils down to education. Our brand of democracy is the one that we consistently create super human beings. Until we look at our government, and say they must start from the bottom to the top, because what we have is a feeding bottle system of government where everybody goes to Abuja on Monday and come back on Friday. I’ve never seen that kind of practice in another country.” He said Nigeria cannot build strong institutions through the democracy that we are practicing, but educating those people that will be leaders, even if they become strong individuals, they will be built on institutions. “We need to sit down, look at our education curriculum, and say, look, we need.
