Rather than the increasingly lifeless activities that defined our Democracy Day celebrations in the past, President Bola Tinubu’s administration decided to give the 2025 edition a tweak that garbed the 26-year-old occasion in more befitting robes.

He cancelled the military parades that used to go with it and instead chose to address the National Assembly where he allowed the public to see his take on the state of our democracy, two years into his tenure.

We commend this move for several reasons. Military parades should have no place in our celebration of democracy. This is a day we set aside to mark our departure from the shackles of military domination and the restoration of power to the people through constitutional rule.

The removal of parades also squares with the shift of our Democracy Day to June 12, the day Nigeria conducted her freest, fairest and most credible election. Nigerians voted across religious, ethnic and regional divisions to give the late Chief Moshood Abiola their mandate to govern them as their president. Our Democracy Day should be an occasion to burnish the best of June 12 and reaffirm our aversion to its annulment and the rights abuses that followed.

The military regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar did not consult the democratic forces in fixing May 29 as handover date and “Democracy Day”. Indeed, the Provisional Ruling Council, PRC, fixed that day without rhyme or reason. They defied the wishes of the main pro-democracy vanguard, the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, and others, which advocated for June 12 as Democracy Day.

In any case, parading again just 14 days after the May 29 activities is overdoing it, with our Independence Day on October 1 in the horizon.

We strongly believe that our Democracy Day should be comprehensively repackaged. Right now, our Democracy Day has been hijacked by government officials, especially those who acquired elective offices by whatever means. They see it as a celebration of their “achievement”. 

Democracy is about the people’s power to produce their leadership through free and fair elections. It is about good governance that impacts the people, not an occasion to reel out meaningless numbers as “achievements”.

Democracy’s dividends include security, functional justice system, economic prosperity and life more abundant. Any democracy that is good only on the ruling class and occupiers of elective and appointive public offices but leaves the people gasping, is perfectly fit for the dustbin of history.

Our Democracy Day events should not only be for the President and National Assembly members or the governors and their House of Assembly members. The judiciary, media, activists and other stakeholders must come together to proffer ideas and changes for a better society.