Recently the political space has been further heated by the narrative from the Tinubu camp that some people are ‘plotting’ to foist an interim government on the country. The subtext is that the ‘plotters’ are using the call for interim government as a veneer to stop Bola Tinubu, who was declared President elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), from being inaugurated as the President on 29 May 2023. The Department of State Service (DSS) lent legitimacy to the alleged plot by announcing (without naming names) that it had indeed uncovered a secret plan by some people to foist an interim government on the country through mass protests.
While I do not personally believe in interim government or the idea of military rule, I will argue that those who are peacefully canvassing for any of these options, have not broken any laws of the land and as such should not be criminalized. In fact, I believe that such calls for interim government or even for military rule as an alternative to what we currently practice are mere expressions of the frustrations with our democracy rather than an attempt to target any person. Besides, not only does the country’s constitution not recognize an interim government, it is almost impossible for anyone to foist an interim government on the country – even through the doctrine of necessity – without an active buy-in of President Buhari who has repeatedly insisted that he would hand over power to Tinubu on 29 May 2023 and had already set up a Transition Committee for that. In this sense, the narrative that some groups are plotting to install an interim government seems to be a red herring.
It should be recalled that the general discontent that followed the conduct of the 25 February 2023 Presidential and National Assembly Elections and the 18 March 2023 Governorship and State Assembly elections had once again raised the question of whether democracy has failed Nigerians. For many independent observers, the electoral process had serious shortcomings that could possibly have tainted the outcomes. For instance the National Democratic Institute/International Republican Institute Election Observation Mission, part of the international observers of the elections, concluded that the elections “fell short of Nigerian citizens’ reasonable expectations.” They noted the failure of INEC to live up to the high expectations it had created for itself and the apparent complicity of some security personal in the electoral malfeasances in some several states like Lagos. The electoral malpractices across the country included violent voter suppression, ballot snatching, ethnic profiling/baiting and politically motivated mayhem and murders.
Given the above and the failure of most Nigerians to see how our liberal democracy has positively impacted on their material circumstances, many citizens are understandably scapegoating our democracy on several grounds: One, is the cost of conducting elections. For instance, given the poor performance of INEC in the conduct of the 2023 elections, many wonder whether the N355bn it budgeted for the elections (excluding donations from external donors) was money well spent. Two, is an increasing scepticism of whether elections as presently conducted are credible means of leadership recruitment. Three, is that elections are divisive in nature as it thrives on creating and sharpening a simplistic binary of we-they dichotomy which in turn widens the social distance among Nigerians. We saw this with the weaponisation of ethnic baiting and profiling in Lagos during and after the elections.
I believe that the above dissatisfactions and frustrations with our democracy are what many of those calling for an interim government or even inadvisably calling for the military to seize power, are expressing. But the problem with this group of people is that they seem to be conflating the shortcomings in the conduct of our elections – which is only one feature of democracy- with the failure of the entire democracy project. It is ironic that those expressing frustrations with our democracy by canvassing for either an interim government or military takeover do so by utilizing one of the key elements of the same liberal democracy – freedom of speech. It can in fact be argued that while there are serious challenges with the conduct of our elections, other components of our democracy such as the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and rule of law have not fared as badly as the conduct of elections.
But why is freedom of speech so vital in a democracy? There are at least four key arguments for justifying free speech in a democracy: first, is the importance of discovering the truth by allowing proposals to compete freely in the marketplace of ideas. Second, is that free speech is regarded as an aspect of self-fulfilment. Three, is that freedom of speech is regarded as being indispensable for citizens to participate effectively in a democracy. Four, is that there is a deep suspicion of government and a belief that only free speech can restrain the authorities from trampling on the rights of the citizens. This means that the DSS and those from the Tinubu camp amplifying the narrative that some people are ‘plotting’ to foist an interim government (and wrongly making it seem as if such people have committed a crime) are either engaging in political blackmail or promoting groupthink. Remarkably, proponents of this narrative criticize both those who have gone to court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as President-elect by INEC as well as those who choose to express their opposition through peaceful protests and expressions. This is dangerous to free speech and even to our democracy.
Groupthink is a term coined by the American social psychologist Irving Janis in 1972. Janis explained the concept as “the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.” In groupthink, loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial or non-conforming issues or even proffering alternative solutions.
Democracy and the freedoms it encourages are antithetical to groupthink. Democracy inherently creates a marketplace of ideas and those from the Tinubu camp ought to find superior ideas to compete in that marketplace – and not resort to blackmail which not only heats up the polity but also makes the task of post-election reconciliation more difficult. For those calling for military intervention, it is also their right – provided that they are not going about it by violent means. The military can either ignore such people or at best warn them not to drag its name to their politics. To try to criminalize people trying to use the free speech guarantee of liberal democracy to actively participate in the political process is to either promote fascism or romanticise groupthink.
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Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science at Nasarawa State University, Keffi and founder of Adonis & Abbey Publishers. He can be reached at 0705 807 8841 (WhatsApp/text message).
