Alliance for Democracy founding member, Prof Udenta Udenta, has accused President Bola Tinubu of pocketing democracy by dismantling democratic values and weaponing the judiciary and the 1999 Constitution (as amended) against Nigerians.
Prof Udenta, a distinguished fellow of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, who was speaking against the background state of emergency declared in Rivers State noted institutions meant to protect democracy has been weakened.
“The system that should protect democratic governance, you are weaponising them; the judiciary, the apparatus of the state, you are distorting, diluting and transmogrifying them in a way and manner that is shutting down democratic conversations,” said Prof. Undenta during a chat on Channels TV Sunrise talkshow on Thursday.
“That is what you find as the legacy of the Bola Tinubu president and his political agents,”
The scholar said dismantling democratic principles isn’t by shooting guns but by misusing democratic instruments like the constitution and the judiciary.
“When you abandon the foundational norms of democracy and then you begin to use instruments you acquired in power to dismantle the guardrails that govern the democratic system, then democracy dies.
“It is not by firing a shot that democracy dies or crumbles, it is leveraging the guardrails like the constitution, like what was done in Rivers State, to abort democratic rules,” he said.
Prof Udenta described what is practised in Rivers State as a “hybrid regime which is a part of competitive authoritarianism” being deployed to “manacle the spirit of a nation and abort democratic institutions at all levels” including labour unions, media houses, political parties, and civil societies.
