Freedom in Penury and Affluence in Confinement: The Perfidy of Democracy in Nigeria

The damaging wave of an increasing socio-economic inequality within and among people has become more pronounced and imminent due to undemocratic nature of Nigerian democracy. Thus, result in palpable fear, insecurity and lack of trust among the rich, the poor, the government and governmental institutions. The poor are economically disempowered and presumably enjoying thraldom freedom with no hope of situational change, while the rich are living in opulence but in confinement and in perpetual fear for insecurity of their private properties with little hope of unhindered freedom as a result of the likely backlash that gross socio-economic inequality deliberately orchestrated and sustained by the political system in Nigeria could engender. This paper therefore, argued that there can never be mutual trust, adequate security and national peace in Nigeria unless the country nascent democracy is rescued away from the political vampires and democracy exploiters particularly by true radical democrats that would ensure institutional reform, social justice, fair distribution of national resources and entrenchment of middle class which has long disappeared in Nigeria.