By Lasisi Olagunju

In ‘Jokes and Targets’ by Christie Davies, a Soviet journalist interviews a Chukchi man:

“Could you tell us briefly how you lived before the October revolution?” 

“Hungry and cold.” 

“How do you live now?” 

“Hungry, cold, and with a feeling of deep gratitude.” 

This sounds like Nigeria’s malaria victims thanking mosquitoes for their love and care. Between democracy and its opposite, reality has blurred the lines. 

Last week, a group of White House pool reporters travelled with President Donald Trump on Air Force One as he returned from his U.K. state visit. At the beginning of the journey, actor Trump sauntered into the rear section of the plane, the traditional part for the press. He granted an interview and ended it with a morbid wish: “Fly safely. You know why I say that? Because I’m on the flight. I want to get home. Otherwise, I wouldn’t care.” 

Ten years ago, if a US president said what Trump told those poor reporters, his presidency would suffer immediate cardiac arrest. But this is Colin Crouch’s post-democracy era: the leader, whether in the US or in Nigeria, in Africa or elsewhere, is the law; whatever he does or says, we bow in gratitude. 

I live in a Nigeria of gratitude and surrender. In the North-West and the North-East, traumatised communities are grateful to bandits and their enablers. They invite them to the negotiation table and thank the murderous gunmen for honouring the invitation. A grateful nation anoints and weeps at the feet of terrorists. In emergency-weaned Rivers State, its remorseful governor is effusive in appreciation of a second chance. The reinstated is ever thankful for the favours of a six-month suspension. From the North to the South, on bad roads and in death-wracked hospital wards, sonorous hymns of appreciation for big mercies ooze. The legislature and the judiciary, even the fourth estate, are all in congregation, singing songs of praise of the benevolent executive. Is this still a democracy? 

American political scientists, Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman in 2020 wrote ‘The Fragile Republic’ for The Foreign Affairs. In that essay, they list four symptoms of democratic backsliding. Prime among the four are economic inequality and excessive executive power. “Excessive executive power” is a three-word synonym for autocratization of democracy. It is a by-word for a democracy hanging itself. 

The second president of the United States of America, John Adams, saw today; he warned of democracy decaying and dying: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams was not alone. There was also William Blake, 18th/19th century English poet, who said “if men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny.” This reads like it was written today and here. If you disagree, I ask: Is it wise (and normal) for the tormented to thank the tormentor? 

Listening to what Trump wished the reporters, we could see that big brother America now leads in democratic ‘erantship’, the Third World merely follows. An enormous country, strong enough to appropriate the name of an entire continent, America, in 2025, is blessed with a strongman that is armed with a licence to rule as it pleases his whim; a president who does what he likes and says what he likes or ‘jokes’ about it without consequences. The result is an imperial presidency that has redefined democracy across the world. 

We say here that the yam of the one who is vigilant never gets burnt. The American system used to be very resilient in providing a leash on presidential excesses. It still does, although under a very difficult situation. Donald Trump, in his first term between 2017 and 2021, signed 220 Executive Orders. In his ongoing second term that began in January 2025, he has, as of September 18, 2025, already signed 204 Executive Orders upturning this balance, rupturing that tendon. An American friend told me that he could no longer recognise his country. But the good news is that those who should talk and act are not surrendering their country to Trump and his faction of the populace. Because it is America (and not Nigeria), there are over 300 lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders or policies in his second term. 

The active legal challenges view the Trump orders either as unconstitutional, exceeding statutory power, or violating rights. And the courts are also doing their job as they should. A 2025 study found some 150 judicial decisions concerning these orders. Some are preliminary injunctions, others are full rulings. President Bola Tinubu last week acknowledged the existence of “over 40 cases in the courts in Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Yenagoa, to invalidate” his Rivers State emergency order. Our courts, especially the Supreme Court, are yet to acknowledge any of the cases with trials, rulings and orders.

It is easy for presidents with unrestrained executive powers to assume imperial airs. In the past, when they did, they feared losing their link with the people and a fall from power. Today, they are on very solid ground, no matter what they do with their people. Midway into his term as US president, an increasingly unpopular Jimmy Carter reassessed himself, and in lamentation told Washington Post’s David Broder that he (Carter) had “fallen into the trap of being ‘head of the government’ rather than ‘leader of the people.’” Today is not that yesterday of sin and punishment. We have surrendered to the point of giving ourselves away. Today’s leaders know that what they need is the government, its power and privileges, certainly not the people. And they keep working hard at it such that America has Trump, and is not the only country that has a Trump. There are Trumps everywhere. We have them in Africa, from the north to the coast.

What democracy suffers in America it suffers more in Africa. Former President Goodluck Jonathan said at the weekend that “democracy in the African continent is going through a period of strain and risk of collapse unless stakeholders come together to rethink and reform it.” He said politicians manipulate the electoral system to perpetuate themselves in office even when the people don’t want them. “Our people want to enjoy their freedom. They want their votes to count during elections. They want equitable representation and inclusivity. They want good education. Our people want security. They want access to good healthcare. They want jobs. They want dignity. When leaders fail to meet these basic needs, the people become disillusioned.” That is from Jonathan who was our president for six years. Did he say these new things because he wants to come back?

Democracy is like water; a wrong dose turns it to poison. If disillusionment has a home, it is in Africa. It is the reason why the youths of the continent are bailing out for succour, and the reason for Trump’s $100,000 fee on work visas.

In The North American Review of November 1910, Samuel J. Kornhauser reproduced a quotation that contains warnings of what threat a people could constitute to their own freedom: “The same tendencies to wanton abuse of power which exist in a despot or a ruling oligarchy may be expected in a democracy from the ruling majority, because they are tendencies incidental to human nature.” The solution was “a free people setting limitations upon the exercise of their own will” so that they would not “turn democracy into a curse instead of a blessing.”

In his 1904 essay, ‘The Relation of the Executive to the Legislative Power’, James T. Young, observed a dramatic shift in American governance: while Woodrow Wilson had earlier warned of “Congressional supremacy,” Young argued that “we now live under a system of executive supremacy,” showing how the traditional checks and balances had failed to maintain equilibrium among the branches. That was in 1904, a hundred and twenty one years ago. 

Someone said a leader’s ability to lead a society successfully is dependent on their capacity to govern themselves. It is that self-governing capacity that is lacking in our power circles. Plus the leaders don’t think they owe history anything. “From the errors of others, a wise man corrects himself…The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.” Publilius Syrus (85–43 BC), the Roman writer credited with uttering those nuggets, was a master of proverbs and apophthegm. We don’t listen to such words; we don’t mind being tripped by the same stone, and it does not matter falling into the same pit. 

A democracy can enthrone emperors and kings but it is not that easy to ask them to dismount the high horse of the state without huge costs. We elect leaders and for unsalutory reasons, we let them roam freely with our lives, our safety and our comfort. We promote and defend them with our freedom. I hope we know the full import (and consequences) of the seed we are planting today. A Pharaoh will come who won’t remember that there was ever a Joseph. 

A Roman emperor called Caligula reigned from 16 March, 37 AD until he was put to sleep on 24 January, 41 AD. ‘Caligula’ was not the name his parents gave him; it was an alias, “a joke of the troops” which trumped his real identity: He was named after popular Julius Caesar. 

Roman historian, Claudius Suetonius, records in his ‘The Lives of the Caesars’ that Caligula became emperor after his father’s death and then “full and absolute power was at once put into his hands by the unanimous consent of the senate and of the mob, which forced its way into the House.” The new leader came popular with a lot of the people’s hope invested in him. Suetonius says the young man “assumed various surnames (for he was called ‘Pious,’ ‘Child of the Camp,’ ‘Father of the Armies,’ and ‘Greatest and Best of Caesars’). Soon the fawning appellations entered his head and he became the opposite of what his people wanted in their leader. One day, Emperor Caligula chanced “to overhear some kings who had come to Rome to pay their respects to him” doing what Yoruba kings love doing: He found them arguing at dinner about whose throne, among them, was the greatest and the highest in nobility. The emperor heard them and cried: “Let there be one Lord, one King.” He called them to order and from that point, it was clear to everyone that republican Rome now had one Lord, one king, and that was Caligula. 

The man said and did things that frightened even the heartless. At a point during his reign, Caligula saw a mass of Roman people, the rabble, applauding some nobles whom he detested. He voiced his hatred for what the people did and said what he thought should be their punishment: “I wish the Roman people had but a single neck so I could cut it through at one blow.” That statement became a quote which has, through centuries, defined his place in history. 

It would appear that 79-year old Donald Trump defined himself for history last week with his “fly safely…because I’m on the flight” statement. A leader, a father and grandfather said he did not care if a plane-load of young men and women perished (without him) in a crash. And he told them so. 

A Twi proverb suggests that “the chief feels the heat only when his own roof is on fire.” Trump’s unfortunate remark is said to be a joke. Even as a joke, what the US president said sits in a long tradition of expensive jokes. Trump’s cruel ‘jest’ couldn’t be funny to any people even if they were under the spell of the leader. History and literature are full of such costly quips that come light from the tongue but which reveal something raw about power and rulers: power does not agree that all human beings possess equal worth, equal dignity, and equal rights. Power talks, and whenever it talks, it sets itself apart. 

King Louis XV of France is remembered for uttering the line: “Après moi, le déluge (After me, the flood).” Some commentators say it was a joke, some others say it was a shrug. History interpreted what Louis XV said as the king not caring a hoot whatever might happen to France after he was gone. That statement is a sound bite that has clung to him forever as Abraham Lincoln’s mother’s prayer clung to her son.

When Louis XV said it, no one saw what the king said as a prophecy, grim and ghastly. I am not sure he also knew the full import of what he said. But it was prescient; fifteen years after his reign, the “flood” came furious with the 1789 revolution culminating in the effective abolition of the French monarchy by the proclamation of the First Republic on September 21, 1792.

Emperor Nero of Rome is remembered forever for playing the fiddle while Rome was burning. In William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, we read a verse that ends with “Nero, Play(ing) on the lute, beholding the towns burn.” What is remembered of Nero is the image of a leader who ‘enjoyed the life of his head’ while his empire got destroyed by fire set at it by the enemy. But did the emperor really do that? Read this from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “So, did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? No. Sort of. Maybe. More likely, he strummed a proto-guitar while dreaming of the new city that he hoped would arise in the fire’s ashes. That isn’t quite the same thing as doing nothing, but it isn’t the sort of decisive leadership one might hope for either.” 

I have roamed from imperial Rome to medieval France, to democratic America and its Nigerian side-kick. What is next  here is to go back, and salute John Adams with this his dispraise of democracy: “It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” A system or a country becomes a joke when its leaders toy with its destiny; when they make light of the fears of their people.

The Akan of Ghana warn that if you sit on comfortable rotten wood to eat pawpaw, your bottom gets wet and your mouth also gets wet. This is to say that there are consequences for choices made. A kabiyesi democracy is an autocratic monarchy. And what does that feel like? I read of a king who joked to his courtiers during famine: “Hunger has no teeth sharp enough to bite me in my palace.” It was a careless statement of a monarchy that has found its way into the mouth of our democracy. I saw it where I read it that the ‘joke’ “was remembered bitterly by the starving commoners who later sang satirical songs about the unfeeling king.” Some jokes outlive their laughter.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

By Abdul Mahmud

Twenty years ago, the radical world I knew shifted. Death came suddenly. It came too close. It took away a friend, a brother, and a comrade, Chima Ubani. The news was like a stone thrown into still water. It rippled through our circles of comrades and activists. It rippled through Lagos, Abuja, Jos, Benin-City, Owerri, Enugu, and even Lanzhou, where I was attending an international conference at the time. The news travelled across continents, carrying with it the same weight of disbelief. Yet the ripples did not make sense to me. They felt as strange and ungraspable as the ripples of the Yangtze River that cut through the heart of that Chinese city, restless, ceaseless, but offering no answers. I watched the river move, wide and indifferent, and wondered how life could flow on so easily when a life so full of meaning had just been stilled. It rippled through the human rights community, through families, through history. I placed frantic calls to Lagos and Abuja, clinging to the hope that it was all a mistake, until Abdul Oroh’s confirmation struck with the force of a thunderbolt. Yet, for me, it did something else. It pierced. It entered. It refused to leave.

Chima was not just another name in the long roll of our fallen activists. To me, he was the measure of what it meant to live for a cause larger than oneself. He embodied the courage I aspired to, the clarity of thought I envied, and the quiet humility and simplicity I longed to cultivate. In him, I saw not only a comrade but also a mirror reflecting the kind of activist I wanted to become. His life was a lesson in discipline, in sacrifice, in the rare art of holding convictions without losing tenderness. To walk in his footsteps was to learn that activism was not performance; but patient fidelity to truth, and that the true work of a comrade was not in loud declarations but in the daily, often unseen, labour of standing with the oppressed. We lived side by side, along with Omolade Adunbi, and the late Bamidele Aturu. We argued, laughed, and dreamed under the same leaking roofs of Lagos hideouts when the dark forces of the state were out with their hammer and hemlock. We worked shoulder to shoulder at the Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO. We drank late into the night after meetings that stretched till dawn.

I knew his family in Lagos as intimately as I knew his larger family in Obete-Umuoha in Obingwa local government area of Abia State, and in turn, his family knew me as one of their own. Chima was not just an activist; he was a soul aflame with conviction, a man whose laughter could dissolve tension even in the gravest of times, and whose courage reminded us that fear was only natural, but surrender was unforgivable. All these were attributes he inherited from his late father, a man of quiet strength who once stood his ground against the traditional ruler of their community when communal lands were seized and appropriated. Even after I secured his release in 1995, following trumped-up charges instigated by that same ruler, he treated the ordeal with remarkable calm, laughing it off in the very manner Chima himself would often dismiss adversity with grace, humour, and an unshaken spirit. He knew my extended family well, and when he and his wife, Ochuwa, came to my wedding in Auchi in late 2001, they were received with the warmth and embrace reserved only for one of our own. And so, when death came for him, it was not abstract. It was not distant. It was not history happening to someone else. It was personal. It was a wound that cut deep. Chima was one of the most committed fighters of my generation. That is not a cliché. It is the plain truth. He had fire in his bones. Yet, he was not consumed by bitterness. He carried conviction without arrogance. He lived with courage, but also with kindness.

We often imagine activists as men of stone. Chima was not stone. He was flesh, blood, laughter, and warmth. He could joke in the middle of danger. He could disarm a tense room with his smile. He carried burdens but refused to pass them on to others. That was his gift. That was his humanity. Two decades later, I still remember the sound of his voice. Calm. Steady. Unhurried. I still remember his way of speaking. He was never dramatic, never loud. Whenever he disagreed with my point of view, he would throw back his head and exclaim, “Mahmudism!”, not in anger; but with a gentle teasing that softened the edge of debate and left us both laughing. He spoke as one who knew that truth did not need embellishment. It only needed to be spoken.

We lived in dangerous times. The late 1980s and 1990s were not gentle to dissenters. The state was suspicious of anyone who dared to raise their head above the parapet. Arrests, detentions, and constant surveillance were normal. We knew fear. But Chima taught us that fear was natural, while surrender was unforgivable. He believed that justice was not a theory. It was not an argument. It was life itself. It was about how people lived, what they ate, what they could say, and whether they could breathe free. He lived and died believing that justice was worth the risk. I think often about how easily it could have been me. Death in those years was never far away. Many of us carried our bags ready for arrest. Many of us slept in different beds each week. Many of us whispered in underground hideouts, waiting for dawn. And yet, when death finally struck, it took Chima.

That is why his loss came too close. It was like watching a mirror crack. It showed me what could have been. It showed me how fragile we were. Loss has many faces. For the public, Chima’s death was the loss of a fearless activist. For me, it was the loss of a brother who once shared my bread. For his family, it was the loss of a son, a husband, a father. Each loss layered on the other. Each pain was its own. Twenty years have gone by. But time does not erase memory. Time only dulls the sting. Memory remains. Memory resists erasure. Memory insists on remembering.

I remember how he carried himself: modest, unassuming, yet firm. He had no taste for theatrics. He did not chase headlines. He did not chase power. He believed that activism was not performance. It was duty. It was life. I sometimes ask myself: what would Chima have said today, looking at the country we now live in? I think he would have been disappointed, but not defeated. He would have seen the corruption, the poverty, the violence. He would have seen the way the state still treats its citizens as expendable. And he would still have believed that change is possible. Chima lived by example. He reminded us that it was not enough to talk about justice. One had to live it. He lived simply. He did not hoard. He did not posture. He stood with the poor, the voiceless, the invisible. He gave them his time, his voice, his life. He died in the very heart of resistance, of standing against President Obasanjo’s anti-poor policy of fuel subsidy removal; a policy that deepened the suffering of the people he had always fought to defend.

I cannot help but think of his family. His wife. His children. They bore the greatest cost of all. For them, the activist was also husband and father. For them, memory is not only political. It is intimate. It is the memory of an empty chair, of birthdays uncelebrated, of milestones missed. We who call him comrade must never forget that their grief was the heaviest. When I think of Chima, I do not only think of struggle. I think of small things. I think of him pouring larger into a glass cup. I think of him folding papers with neat care. I think of his habit of writing late into the night, pen scratching across the page while Lagos slept. These are the images that linger. These are the things that remind me that loss is not abstract.
We often tell ourselves that time heals. But time does not heal. It only teaches us how to carry pain differently. Some days the weight is light. Some days it is heavy. But it never goes away. Twenty years is a long time. Yet, it feels like yesterday. The phone call. The shock. The silence that followed. The feeling of something tearing inside. These things are not forgotten. They live in the marrow of memory. I write this not only to mourn Chima. I write this to remind us that the lives of men like him are testimonies. They are not just stories of the past. They are the guiderails for the present. They tell us what courage looks like. They tell us what it means to hold fast when the ground beneath us shakes. In remembering him, I also confront myself. What have I done with the years that have passed? How faithful have I been to the values we once held together? These are questions that memory demands. They are uncomfortable questions. But they are necessary.

I remember him saying during a cell meeting I hosted at my home, with that calm conviction that was his trademark: “The struggle is not about us. It is about those who come after us”. He was right. Today, twenty years after his passing, we owe it to him to continue. We owe it to him to live lives that bear witness. We owe it to him to refuse despair. Sleep on, Chima. You are not forgotten. You remain in the stories we tell. You remain in the lives you touched. You remain in the quiet moments when memory returns like a shadow at dusk. Though twenty years is a long time; but, memory keeps you near. Though death claimed you, you live still – in us, with us, among us, in peace and in power.

Sleep on, dear native of my person.

Abdul Mahmud, President of Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL), writes from Abuja.