{"id":67533,"date":"2025-06-07T21:25:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T21:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67533"},"modified":"2025-06-07T21:25:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T21:25:48","slug":"nigeria-risks-slipping-into-dictatorship-ozekhome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/07\/nigeria-risks-slipping-into-dictatorship-ozekhome\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria Risks Slipping into Dictatorship -Ozekhome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Renowned constitutional lawyer, Professor Mike Ozekhome (SAN), has warned that Nigeria is gradually drifting toward authoritarian rule, cautioning that the country may effectively become a one-party state if current political trends are left unchecked.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s Hard Copy programme on Saturday, Ozekhome expressed deep concern over what he described as the shrinking space for political plurality and ideological clarity in Nigeria\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a one-party state, dictatorship reigns supreme. Everybody will agree. National Assembly pocketed, judiciary will be pocketed, and everybody will be saying \u2018yes, yes, yes,\u2019\u201d he said, painting a grim picture of the possible consequences of unchecked executive dominance.<\/p>\n<p>The senior advocate decried the increasing rate of defections and party-switching among politicians, describing it as evidence of a lack of ideological commitment and a threat to a robust democratic process.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to the growing concentration of power in the hands of President Bola Tinubu, who he accused of positioning loyalists across major institutions, a move he believes could neutralise opposition voices and weaken checks and balances ahead of the 2027 general elections.<\/p>\n<p>Ozekhome also raised alarm over the indifference of ordinary Nigerians to these developments, likening the populace\u2019s passivity to a form of \u201cStockholm Syndrome\u201d where victims begin to sympathise with their oppressors.<\/p>\n<p>He urged citizens to reclaim their constitutional authority, reminding them that ultimate power lies with the people. \u201cThe power is yours; it is not theirs,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo Renowned constitutional lawyer, Professor Mike Ozekhome (SAN), has warned that Nigeria is gradually drifting toward authoritarian rule, cautioning that the country may effectively become a one-party state if current political trends are left unchecked. Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s Hard Copy programme on Saturday, Ozekhome expressed deep concern over what he described as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":67534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-67533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67535,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67533\/revisions\/67535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}