Nigeria, June 14 -- Nigeria's democratic question is often wrongly framed as if democracy is a foreign garment that we must keep adjusting until it fits our body. We speak of Westminster, Washington, Athens, Paris and every borrowed vocabulary of governance, yet the wound before us is neither Greek nor British nor American. It is Nigerian. Our hunger is Nigerian. Our insecurity is Nigerian. Our broken families are Nigerian. Our abandoned children are Nigerian. Our vote-buying, ethno-religious suspicion, weak local institutions, elite impunity and democratic impatience are Nigerian. Therefore, any democracy that will heal us must be made in Nigeria.



This is not a call for isolation. It is a call for ownership. Democracy cannot survive...