Human rights activist and politician, Omoyele Sowore, has insisted that Nigeria is yet to become a truly ‘democratic nation’, despite the military relinquishing power to civilians in 1999.
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) made this known on Wednesday when he appeared as a guest on the Arise Television programme, ‘Prime Time’.
The publisher, who recently left the Kuje correctional facility following his ₦200 million bail at a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja over the alleged defamation of President Bola Tinubu, noted that the country had undergone a mere ‘transition to civil rule’.
He argued that Nigeria does not have the ‘basic tenets of democracy’, adding that the military left and abandoned the people with a constitution whose origin they do not know.
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Speaking during the interview, Sowore said: “Nigeria had a transition to civil rule, but never became a democratic nation. We don’t have the basic tenets of democracy.
“Because the military left and abandoned us with a constitution we didn’t know how it was written doesn’t mean we have democratic rule.
“Limitations to freedom of expression should be regulated according to the law and not by those in power.
“If the law says you can speak truth to power, nobody should have the right to prevent you from expressing yourself. They are interested only in punishing me without conviction.”