Former Cross River State governor and Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) presidential candidate Donald Duke has declared that Nigerians were better off under military rule.
He argued that 27 years of civilian government had imposed enormous costs without delivering corresponding improvements in the lives of the people.
“The people were better off under the military. At least governance was not that expensive,” Duke said in an interview over the weekend.
He stressed that the assessment should be measured against the welfare of citizens and the “democracy dividends” delivered since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999.
“I’m speaking broadly now. If we focus on the well-being of the people, what we term democracy dividends, how much has been delivered? We’re still having the same problems we had 27 years ago. It’s getting worse. The number of children out of school has not improved; it’s deteriorating. The healthcare system is not improving; it’s deteriorating.“
"Infrastructure deficiency over the last 27 years, are we better off? The question is: are we better off today than we were in 1999? Hardly so. Hardly so,” he added.
Duke said Nigeria had failed to resolve the fundamental problems that existed before the return of democratic government, including electrification and unemployment.
He noted that there was no structured approach to tackling these issues and expressed frustration that the country was not learning from peer nations that had successfully addressed similar challenges.
The PRP presidential candidate said Nigeria’s governance crisis was worsened by a weakened and self-centred opposition, as well as a political system in which election results often failed to reflect the wishes of voters.
“The opposition is terribly weakened and self-centred. Democracy is also in danger. The results you get from the polls often don’t reflect the views of the people. So there’s a disenchantment with the system, both by the contestants and the public. Most people don’t vote because they believe their votes don’t count,” he said.
He argued that disputed elections had weakened accountability, allowing political officeholders who did not feel answerable to voters to disregard their needs.
Duke described Nigeria’s democratic system as a pretence, alleging that neither the legislature nor the judiciary provided effective checks on executive power.
“We don’t have a democracy. We are pretending democracy. We’re not a democracy. You and I know that. And the checks and balances from the National Assembly, you know there’s no check; there’s no balance,” he said.
He cited the speed with which the National Assembly approved the return to Nigeria’s former national anthem as evidence of lawmakers’ failure to interrogate executive proposals, and criticised the judiciary for lacking independence.
Duke blamed the country’s elite for abandoning the political space to those who treated public office as a permanent occupation rather than a vocation.
He also warned that the widening divide between the rich and poor posed an increasing threat to social stability, recalling a past warning that a time would come when the rich would not sleep because the poor had not eaten.
“Nigeria is exceedingly blessed. It’s sad. It’s painful that we are where we are,” Duke lamented, noting that the country possessed the human and material resources required to transform the lives of its citizens.
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