TheCable

Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos state, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to do his best to protect the country’s democracy.

He also appealed to Nigerians not to take the nation’s democracy for granted, but keep and nurture it for the progress and growth of the country.

Tinubu,  an All Progressives Congress (APC) national stalwart, made the call in his message on this year’s Democracy Day and second year of Buhari’s administration.

”I congratulate Nigerians on this day. I congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari and urge him and his administration to continue to do all it can to protect and improve our democratic way of life,” he said.

“Democracy Day and our commemoration of it must be more than an empty ritual. It must add up to more than another reason to have another holiday.

“We, as a people, choose democracy as our preferred form of governance not because it would be easy to achieve or to hold even once we have it.

“We choose democracy because history has taught us that the welfare of the people is best and perhaps only secured by the government responsive and accountable to the people. This can only be democracy.

“Many Nigerians have fought and sacrificed to enshrine democracy as our way of governance. We mark this day in honour of these people, many of whom laboured in obscurity and without proper thanks, to achieve this precious thing for the nation.

“We mark this day to keep in remembrance that we must not take this good form of government for granted. We must keep and nurture it, not for democracy’s sake, but for our own sake.

“We must remember that should we fall asleep, there are those who would like nothing better than to take our democracy from us.”