As Nigeria marks 26 years of uninterrupted democracy, citizens and activists have continued to raise the alarm over shrinking civic space and its negative impact on democratic governance.
Concerns over the clampdown on dissenting voices, protests, and protesters, among others, during President Bola Tinubu’s first two years were raised during a radio programme, Public Conscience, produced by the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development (PRIMORG), on Wednesday in Abuja.
The Programme Officer for Security and Human Rights at Global Rights Nigeria, Ajeole Enamarie assessed the state of the civic space in the country and said the situation has gone beyond fear and is now an urgent problem needing a solution.
She accused the government of making concerted efforts to stop people from exercising their civic freedom and, in so doing, subjecting democracy to attack, and called on the president to use his position to protect the civic space and citizens from further attacks and harm.
Enamarie identified weak institutions, state capture, and uninformed security operatives as some of the main factors giving rise to Nigeria’s shrinking civic space, adding that it is almost impossible for citizens to withstand repression when the government deliberately orchestrates it.
She said: ‘The fears and concerns of Nigeria’s shrinking space is not just a fear, it’s an urgent concern. Over the last two years, we have seen deliberate efforts to stifle dissenting voices. You even hear rhetorics by some political elites coming online to say social media is demonic and all that. You have media journalists who have been abducted or forced disappearances of journalists and human rights defenders.
‘Democracy is actually under attack in Nigeria. But when we have violent elections and violent responses to people’s complaints, can you then say that we’re practicing democracy? Because democracy should be the government of the people, by the people, meaning that in a democratic space, the people should be able to exercise their voice and rights to express their dissent to existing policies. When citizens cannot express their dissent, there’s an attack on even democracy itself.
‘You have bills being pushed that are targeted at shrinking people’s voices on public issues. So yes, over the past two years, there have been direct and concerted efforts to shrink the civic space in Nigeria’.
On what the Tinubu administration can do, Enamarie said: ‘Under section 14 of the Constitution, security and welfare is the duty of the government, and the president is the chief security officer of Nigeria as a CSO if security agents are not acting right either hold them accountable or change strategies as where it is fit. Someone is not doing what you’ve instructed properly, you either remove him, penalise him, or hold them accountable, and accountability goes down to the body language of the president’.
Reacting on the 2025 National Day of Mourning, which is held every 28 May, an initiative launched over half a decade ago to pay tribute to victims of attacks and demand the government restore security in the country, Enamarie revealed that Global Rights report of mass atrocities in Nigeria in 2024 increased by 21%.
She emphasised that Global Rights verified that ‘at least 5,353 killings and 5,171 abductions of Nigerians, which both represent a 21 percent rise in the previous year, warning that the government must take critical steps to prevent the numbers from burgeoning.
‘Speaking about Mass Atrocities, in 2024, we had at least 5,353 people killed. When compared to 2023, it increased by 21 percent, and then the abductions were 5,171 people abducted across Nigeria. That number showed us a 94% increase compared to 2023, and these numbers are expected to increase if nothing is done to secure Nigeria as it is’, Enamarie warned.
A member of the Labour Party, Mr. Solomon Danjuma Garda stated that the shrinking civic in Nigeria is real and unfortunate, accusing the Nigeria Police Force of attacking peaceful protests by natives of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the past, dispersing them with tear gas.
Garda, who is also an indigene of the FCT, called on President Tinubu to live by example and show seriousness in safeguarding Nigeria’s civic space by ensuring security agents who attack peaceful civic engagements are brought to book having been a beneficiary of the civic space before now.
He cautioned that situations where peaceful protests are quelled by security agents and protesters killed continuously for standing up for their rights is a recipe for chaos and could make citizens arm themselves against attacks in the future.
He said: ‘It is unfortunate that the civic space has been hijacked. As an Original Inhabitant of Abuja and then to share experiences of how we’ve been disengaged, molested, beaten up, and even killed. When people protest, they demand that the government speak to them.
‘Just recently, an original inhabitant was shot at the National Assembly. I was at the scene of the protest. We went peacefully with placards, and they (police) came to us with guns. They shot us with tear gas canisters at a close range and not in the air but directly at us. One person died from it. You can see that the civic space is being polluted.
‘But we’ve seen cases where people kill civilians, and they go scot-free just to add up to what we see. So, it’s wrong when we have leaders, especially our executive arm of government, and a lot of things are going bad, and they are not frowning at it’.
Garda advised President Tinubu on the shrinking civic space: ‘If this administration is serious about the renewed hope like their Mantra or Agenda, they need to live by example because things are getting worse every day.
‘Living by example is them being accountable to Nigerians who invested trust in them to lead. Nigerians are not happy. You can hear from the mouths of the youths out there who are finding ways to leave this country’, he said.
Listeners to the radio programme also registered their concern over the shrinking civic space in Nigeria and the challenges it portends to Nigeria’s 26 years old stable democracy.
Cyril Okonkwo from Abuja said: ‘I feel bad. This situation provokes me. Nigerians are being pushed to the wall, some day they will burst. I advise the government to thread with caution. How will the elections thrive when they have hijacked all the institutions? Nigerians are now so afraid. Nigerians will have to come out without fear’.
Yemi from Maitaima, Abuja: ‘As it is right now, we are running a military government in a civilian pretext. I can’t wait to forsake this country for Amsterdam. There is no hope for peaceful elections in this country’.
Audu from Nasarawa: ‘Voting in Nigeria, we know it is not the people we are voting for that they are announcing. That is why people don’t like to vote. The last election was highly participatory, but what came out of it? Nothing stops us from voting if they can eschew corruption from the process’.
Public Conscience is a syndicated weekly anti-corruption radio programme by PRIMORG that draws the government’s and citizens’ attention to corruption and integrity issues in Nigeria. It runs in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation.
