Former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
Former Vice-President warns that elections and constitutional processes are not enough, urging legal practitioners to confront institutional failures and put citizens’ welfare at the heart of democratic governance.
Former Vice-President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has challenged Nigerian lawyers to move beyond conventional courtroom practice and deploy their professional knowledge and influence to make democracy work for ordinary citizens, insisting that its success must be judged by improvements in human welfare rather than elections and constitutional procedures alone.
Delivering the keynote address at the 2026 Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL) in Umuahia, Abia State, on Tuesday, November 10, Osinbajo said democracy must connect more firmly with the everyday needs of citizens, including employment, food, healthcare, access to justice and the security of lives and livelihoods.
“Democracy must connect more firmly with human welfare, to jobs, to food, to healthcare, to justice and the security of lives and livelihoods,” he said.
The former Vice-President argued that the existence of democratic institutions and the regular conduct of elections do not automatically translate into better living conditions. Governments must also demonstrate that their policies and institutions can protect citizens, create opportunities and provide essential services.
His warning comes amid mounting evidence of public dissatisfaction with democratic performance across Africa. A September 2026 Afrobarometer report, based on surveys conducted in 38 African countries in 2024 and 2025, found that only 38 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the way democracy was working in their countries, while 47 per cent considered their countries democracies.
The survey found that although a majority of Africans continued to prefer democracy, popular commitment to democratic government had weakened over the preceding decade. Its researchers linked increasingly negative assessments of government performance to the decline.
Nigeria’s figures offer a particularly telling picture. Afrobarometer’s latest country data show that 64 per cent of Nigerians still consider democracy preferable to any other form of government. Yet 80 per cent said corruption in the country had increased somewhat or a lot over the preceding year, while 85 per cent disapproved of the government’s decision to remove fuel subsidies.
The figures point to a public that has not abandoned democratic government but expects considerably better performance from those elected to exercise power. Osinbajo cautioned against interpreting dissatisfaction with democratic governance as an argument for authoritarian rule or military intervention. Rather, he called for accountable leadership, competent public institutions and a stronger commitment to improving the conditions under which citizens live.
He identified corruption, weak institutions, poor job creation and declining youth participation in electoral politics as factors capable of further eroding confidence in democratic government.
Lawyers As Agents Of Public Accountability
A significant part of Osinbajo’s address was directed at the legal profession and its responsibility beyond representing clients in individual disputes.
He urged lawyers to see themselves as social engineers whose work should include examining how laws, public policies and institutions affect the lives of ordinary people, particularly those who cannot afford legal representation or lack the influence to demand government attention.
He called on practitioners to scrutinise public budgets and expenditure, challenge administrative failures, defend citizens’ rights and work with communities to improve public services.
The former Vice-President also identified prolonged court proceedings, judicial corruption and impunity as obstacles to public confidence in the justice system. Where obtaining a remedy requires years of litigation or resources beyond the reach of ordinary citizens, he argued, the promise of equality before the law becomes difficult to realise.
His emphasis on affordable justice drew from his experience as Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, when his administration introduced initiatives designed to make legal assistance and dispute resolution more accessible.
These included the Directorate for Citizens’ Rights, the Office of the Public Defender and Citizens’ Mediation Centres. The initiatives provided legal assistance to indigent citizens and offered alternatives to expensive and protracted court proceedings.
Osinbajo recalled that the mediation centres resolved more than 8,000 disputes in their first year, compared with fewer than 2,000 cases handled by magistrates’ courts over the same period.
The model reflected a practical understanding of access to justice: citizens should not have to endure lengthy and costly litigation to resolve disputes involving matters such as tenancy, family relations, inheritance and other everyday grievances. In a separate account of his justice-sector reforms, Osinbajo has explained that the public defender system was extended to civil disputes, allowing indigent citizens to pursue claims against individuals, businesses and even government.
The Federal Ministry of Justice’s Department of Citizens’ Rights continues to identify access to justice and alternative dispute resolution as central to its mandate, including in landlord-tenant disputes, employment matters, domestic violence, inheritance and enforcement of judgments.
The Test Of Economic Reform
Osinbajo’s insistence that democracy must deliver tangible benefits also resonates with the difficult economic circumstances facing Nigerian households.
The World Bank’s October 2026 Nigeria Development Update says the country has recorded resilient growth and improved fiscal and external positions, but argues that the priority must now shift towards faster, more inclusive growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty and improves living standards.
Its April 2026 assessment similarly noted that household incomes had yet to recover fully and poverty remained high despite progress in restoring macroeconomic stability. The Bank stressed that economic gains must translate into better livelihoods through investment in human capital, healthcare, nutrition, education and opportunities for productive employment.
This is the policy challenge behind Osinbajo’s argument. Economic indicators may improve, government revenues may rise, and reforms may produce macroeconomic gains, but citizens will judge their value by whether families can afford food, children can remain in school, patients can obtain treatment, and workers can secure decent employment.
The World Bank’s October report also places responsibility on state governments to turn increased public resources into better development outcomes through more effective and accountable spending. The quality of public expenditure, rather than the volume of revenue available to government, is essential to ensuring that economic gains reach citizens.
For lawyers, that creates a wider field of public-interest work: examining how public funds are spent, challenging unlawful administrative decisions, demanding transparency in public procurement, defending communities affected by government or corporate conduct, and holding institutions to their statutory and constitutional responsibilities.
A Challenge To The Bar
The keynote formed part of the NBA-SPIDEL conference, themed “In Public Interest: Advancing Justice, Democracy and Development.” The gathering brought together legal practitioners, members of the judiciary, public officials, academics and civil society actors to examine the contribution of the law and the legal profession to democratic governance and national development.
The session was chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Suleiman Galadima, with responses from Prof. Pat Utomi, founder of the Centre for Values and Leadership; Lisa Henry, Secretary-General of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims; and Associate Prof. Sam Amadi, Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought. The choice of respondents brought political economy, human rights and institutional governance perspectives to the keynote’s central argument.
Osinbajo’s message placed a responsibility on the Bar that extends beyond the defence of professional interests. Lawyers, he maintained, must help make public institutions answerable to the people they exist to serve.
For a country where citizens continue to contend with insecurity, poverty, corruption, unemployment and barriers to justice, the challenge is not merely to preserve democratic structures. It is to ensure that those structures produce protection, opportunity and remedies that people can actually access.
His address also leaves the legal profession with a practical measure of its own public-interest commitment: whether its influence is being used only in the service of individual clients and powerful institutions, or also to defend the rights and improve the conditions of citizens who have little access to power.
