Donald Duke Says Nigerians Were Better Off Under Military Rule Than 27 Years of Democracy
Former Cross River State Governor and Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) presidential candidate, Donald Duke, has declared that Nigerians were better off under military rule, arguing that 27 years of civilian government have imposed enormous costs on the country without delivering corresponding improvements in the lives of ordinary citizens.
Speaking during a weekend interview in Abuja, Duke did not mince words in his assessment of Nigeria’s democratic era since the return to civilian rule in 1999. “The people today, Sunny, I would tell you that they were better off under the military. At least governance was not that expensive,” he said. He argued that the true measure of a democracy’s success should not rest on the mere existence of democratic institutions, but on the tangible welfare benefits, or “democracy dividends,” delivered to citizens. On that score, he suggested Nigeria had largely fallen short. “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? Hardly so,” he said, adding that the country was, in his view, dealing with the same fundamental problems it had 27 years ago, with some, such as the number of out-of-school children, having deteriorated further.
Duke pointed specifically to unresolved structural challenges that predate Nigeria’s return to civilian rule, including electrification and unemployment, arguing that these issues remain largely unaddressed due to a lack of coordinated policy response. “The problems that existed before 1999, electrification, unemployment, those things are still there. And I don’t see a structured approach towards dealing with these issues,” he said, describing his frustration with what he characterised as Nigeria’s failure to learn from the experiences of comparable countries in solving similar governance challenges.
The former governor went further, questioning whether Nigeria could genuinely be described as practising democracy at all, pointing to what he views as a weakened legislature and judiciary unable to effectively check executive power. “We don’t have a democracy. We are pretending democracy,” he said, adding that he considered the country’s electoral system to be similarly compromised, arguing that disputed election outcomes had steadily eroded public trust and, in turn, accountability. He said the resulting disconnect between elected officials and voters has allowed politicians to disregard the needs of the electorate. “Because your vote doesn’t matter, there’s a tendency to take people for a ride and disregard what is required by the people,” he said, further criticising Nigeria’s opposition landscape as weakened and self-centred, and describing the broader crisis of trust in the system as one shared by both political contestants and the public.
Beyond institutional criticism, Duke also placed significant blame on what he described as a failure of Nigeria’s political and social elite, accusing them of abandoning leadership responsibilities to career politicians who treat public office as a permanent occupation rather than a temporary vocation. He warned that Nigeria’s widening gap between rich and poor posed a growing threat to social stability, invoking a proverb attributed to the late economist Professor Sam Aluko warning that a time would come when the wealthy could no longer rest easy while the poor remained hungry, suggesting that such a moment may now be approaching.
Duke’s remarks add to an ongoing national conversation around the performance of Nigeria’s democracy ahead of the 2027 general elections, as the PRP presidential candidate continues to position himself as a vocal critic of the political establishment heading into the campaign season.
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