Democracy requires constructive patriotism, not sabotage
In healthy democracies, opposition is not only inevitable, but essential. It keeps power in check, brings alternative views to light, and ensures that governance remains accountable. However, a disturbing pattern has emerged both in mature and emerging democracies: opposition has become synonymous with sabotage. Political rivalry increasingly revolves not around improving policy but ensuring its […]
In healthy democracies, opposition is not only inevitable, but essential. It keeps power in check, brings alternative views to light, and ensures that governance remains accountable. However, a disturbing pattern has emerged both in mature and emerging democracies: opposition has become synonymous with sabotage. Political rivalry increasingly revolves not around improving policy but ensuring its failure just to claim moral victory.
We see this vividly in the United States. During the current and past Trump administrations, opposition to his presidency often morphed into reflexive obstruction. Policies were not weighed on merit but dismissed outright because of their origin. Even potentially beneficial ideas on trade, border control, or vaccine development were met with organised resistance. For many, a failed policy was more politically valuable than a successful one authored by the “wrong” leader.
This behaviour is not limited to America. In Nigeria, we see the same pattern, perhaps even more starkly. Successive administrations inherit policies they once vehemently opposed, only to rebrand and implement them with fanfare. The same fuel subsidy removal, economic diversification plans, and social investment programmes once criticised are often reintroduced with new names and repackaged narratives. What was once mocked becomes a model, not because it changed, but because the party in power did. The inconsistency reflects not just political opportunism, but the fragility of our democratic culture.
More troubling is the role played by citizens in this cycle. Policies do not fail in isolation. They are often sabotaged by the very people they intend to benefit. Many Nigerians oppose nearly every major government policy from inception; fuel price adjustments, tax reforms, education overhauls, currency redesigns, students loan, etc, often not based on principle or practicality, but on suspicion, partisanship, or groupthink.
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Education and tax reforms are routinely politicised by citizens who distrust motives rather than analyse substance. Social media accelerates outrage, distorting facts and framing national decisions as partisan betrayals. These policies are resisted through strikes, misinformation, and civil disobedience, only to be praised in hindsight. This behavioural inconsistency undermines national development.
In such an environment, policies are not given a chance to succeed. They are strangled at birth—by both opposition parties and an impatient public. When policies fail, it is not always because they were poorly designed. Sometimes, they fail because we refused to give them a fair trial.
It is worth asking: what might have been the outcome if citizens had chosen constructive engagement instead of opposition? The answers are as instructive as they are sobering.
Imagine if Nigerians had supported fuel subsidy removal in 2012. The funds saved could have been redirected into critical infrastructure like roads, healthcare, education, years earlier, reducing poverty and creating jobs. Instead, the policy was reversed under public pressure, and billions of naira continued to be drained from national resources until the same policy was reintroduced a decade later, under more severe economic strain.
If citizens had approached the 2023 currency redesign policy with calm and cooperation rather than panic and politicised resistance, the Central Bank might have been able to implement digital cash transitions more smoothly, without the cash shortages that disrupted commerce and livelihoods.
Cooperation shortens the policy cycle, reduces conflict, and accelerates the benefits of reform. True democracy thrives when citizens co-author solution and not when they root for failure.
Patriotism does not require silence in the face of bad governance. But it does require fairness. It calls for citizens and political actors to evaluate policies based on substance, not on who proposed them. It means acting to correct, not to collapse.
If a roof is leaking and a leader insists on sitting beneath it, patriotism is not proven by standing aside and watching them get drenched, just to say, “I told you so.” Instead, patriotism is proven by finding a way to mitigate the anticipated fallout, e.g., to shield them from the leak, to patch the leak, or at the very least, to limit the damage. We need to understand that when the roof falls, it does not fall on one party alone, it collapses on all of us.
Now, imagine if Nigerians support, or at least, don’t sabotage the policies of the current government?. Many of those who vehemently opposed the student loan scheme of the current regime have their wards quietly collecting and enjoying the loan and student support scheme now.
Citizens are not spectators in governance. They are participants. Their engagement can make or break national progress. Protests, strikes, and criticism are democratic rights, but so is solution-building, dialogue, and the patience to allow complex reforms to yield results.
To break this cycle of destructive opposition and civic sabotage, one would need to use evidence: why do we have the situation? What evidence-based methods have been shown to be effective, given what was found to be the reasons? What method(s) of applying the solutions have been shown to be effective? Meanwhile, from first principles, the following steps should be useful:
- Public civic education
From secondary schools to national orientation programmes, civic education must stress not just rights, but responsibilities. Citizens must be taught that patriotism involves support for national interests, not just political affiliations.
- Political maturity from leadership
Leaders, especially those in opposition, must learn to praise good policies—even when they come from rival parties. This maturity can set the tone for a more cooperative democratic culture. Former leaders should serve as statesmen, not political snipers.
- Create national policy scorecards
Nonpartisan think tanks, academic institutions, and policy research centres should develop scorecards to track the impact of government policies over time. This depoliticises performance and allows citizens to evaluate governance based on results, not rhetoric.
- Strengthen independent media and fact-checking bodies
The media should not be a battlefield for partisan warfare. Journalists must be trained to analyse policies objectively and avoid framing every issue as a “win” or “loss” for one side. Independent fact-checkers should play a more prominent role in correcting misinformation about policy intentions and outcomes.
- Institutionalise bipartisan policy councils
Major policies should be crafted through inclusive panels that include opposition parties, professional associations, and civil society. Shared authorship leads to shared responsibility.
When citizens and politicians make it their mission to ensure the failure of a government, they do not hurt the ruling party alone. They damage the country’s prospects, credibility, and capacity for reform. They turn national progress into a casualty of partisan war.
True democracy cannot flourish in a culture where every idea is killed before it lives, every initiative condemned before it’s tested, and every government sabotaged before it governs. We must redefine patriotism to mean more than loyalty to party. It must mean loyalty to the nation, even when you are not in power, even when your candidate didn’t win, and especially when the policy on the table may work.
The duty of every citizen is not just to hold government accountable, but to hold themselves accountable for the role they play in either building or breaking the nation.
Professor Bello, Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto [email protected]