Esqueefis 🦋💜

Buhari was a proper dictator, for instance. Look at what happened to those Shiites under him. They were killed during confrontations with the state, El-Zakzaky’s sons were murdered, and he himself was eventually thrown into prison. And the country largely carried on as though nothing extraordinary had happened. One day in 2021, Buhari’s government decided it was time to deal with Sunday Igboho. So they sent security operatives to his residence in the middle of the night. They shot up the place, killed people, killed his cat, and turned his home into a crime scene. Sunday Igboho had to flee for his life. He had every reason to believe that if they got their hands on him, he might not survive. Then came #EndSARS. Young Nigerians took to the streets to protest police brutality and demand accountability. What did Buhari’s government do? Security forces opened fire on protesters at Lekki, people were killed, and bodies were reportedly removed from the scene. Buhari was so emboldened by his power that he went on national television and reminded Nigerians that he had exercised restraint. Fgs. 😭🤦🏾‍♂️ His own party’s politicians subsequently told Nigerians to be grateful for his fatherly disposition, suggesting that things could have been much worse if he hadn’t shown such restraint. And what about the invasion of Nnamdi Kanu’s residence in Abia State, the killings surrounding that operation, and the wider campaign of state violence against his supporters? These are not obscure people living beyond the reach of the Nigerian state. These are prominent Nigerians with public profiles, followers and political constituencies. If the government could deploy the coercive machinery of the state against them with such impunity, imagine what it could do to an ordinary Nigerian without political connections or public visibility or the resources to attract attention. This is precisely what I mean when I say Nigeria has functioned like a dictatorship for decades. The funny thing is people are confusing the existence of elections, political parties and a parliament with the actual distribution and exercise of power. Democracy is not simply the periodic opportunity to vote. It is also the existence of enforceable limits on government power, institutional accountability and protection from arbitrary state violence. Kapish? Do you have that in Nigeria? 🤔 In Nigeria, the state can ruin lives, abduct people, shoot protesters and deploy security agencies against perceived enemies, often without meaningful consequence. The fact that you have not personally experienced the full weight of that power does not mean it doesn’t exist. You, as an ordinary Nigerian, could become its next target, and there might not even be enough public outrage to make the evening news. And you still want to tell me Nigeria isn’t functionally a dictatorship?