In a scene reminiscent of Nigeria’s nostalgic military-era clampdowns, heavily armed policemen descended on Wadata Plaza, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) national secretariat in Abuja, on Monday—allegedly to bar the party’s own Board of Trustees (BoT) from convening. BoT member and former PDP National Secretary Ibrahim Tsauri charged that officers, citing “orders from above,” physically prevented entry. Yet the Federal Capital Territory Police Command insists no seal was applied: according to its Public Relations Officer, SP Josephine Adeh, personnel were merely “deployed to maintain law and order and ensure public safety in line with their constitutional mandate” and “at no time was the secretariat sealed off” punchng.com.
This claim arrives against a sobering backdrop: Nigeria languishes as a “hybrid regime” in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, with a Sub‑Saharan average score of just 4.00 out of 10—well below the global mean of 5.17—and ranking among the bottom 25% for Rule of Law and Civil Liberties ourworldindata.orgeiu.com. Freedom House similarly flags persistent electoral irregularities and executive overreach, noting that despite hundreds of registered parties, genuine pluralism remains stifled freedomhouse.org.
Indeed, the spectre of “political policing” is hardly new. Under successive administrations—even in the post‑1999 democratic era—security forces have twice disrupted opposition gatherings on flimsy security pretexts, notably during the run‑up to the 2023 elections and the 2018 governorship primaries freedomhouse.org. Yet each incident chips away at public trust, fuelling fears that the space for dissent is shrinking under President Bola Tinubu’s government.
The stakes are heightened by Nigeria’s economic turmoil. With headline inflation lingering at 22.97% in May 2025—down only marginally from a peak of 33.2% last year—ordinary Nigerians grapple with soaring food and energy prices even as democratic aspirations falter nairametrics.com. When the state appears to weaponise its monopoly on force against political opponents, the very foundations of public safety and prosperity are imperilled.
If allowed to stand, Monday’s theatrics will mark yet another dangerous precedent: normalising the use of security forces as political arbiters. The PDP—and indeed all Nigerians—deserve more than glossy denials and hasty press statements. They deserve a constitutionally bound police force that protects, not intimidates, the people’s right to assemble and dissent.
