The Democracy Some Leaders Once Fought For Must Be Remembered Before It Is Lost

By Abidemi Adebamiwa

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not stumble into democracy. He fought for it. At a time when speaking out could cost people their freedom, their safety, or their future, he stood with others who believed Nigerians deserved the right to choose their leaders. Men like General Alani Akinrinade paid heavy personal prices for that belief. They understood something simple but powerful, that a country cannot survive when power is allowed to silence choice.

That history matters today.

So when a party chairman can stand before cameras and openly say that the goal is for every Nigerian to belong to one political party, it should worry us all. Not because of politics, but because of what it forgets. It forgets the struggle. It forgets the sacrifices. It forgets why democracy was fought for in the first place.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the breakdown did not begin with violence. It began with language. The pigs spoke of unity and progress, of doing what was best for everyone. Slowly, the other animals were told that disagreement was dangerous and that questioning authority threatened stability. Before long, choice disappeared, not through force at first, but through persuasion and fear of standing alone.

Nigeria must not walk that same road.

Democracy is not strengthened by everyone belonging to one political family. It survives because citizens are free to think differently. It grows when opposition exists, not when it is absorbed. Once leaders begin to speak comfortably about political uniformity, even elections start to lose their meaning.

President Tinubu understands this struggle better than most. He has lived it. That is why remembering those days matters, not as nostalgia, but as warning.

Because in Animal Farm, the tragedy was not that power changed hands. It was that, in the end, no one could tell the difference anymore.

Abidemi Adebamiwa is the Managing Editor @ Newspot Nigeria.