Nigeria ranked 95th, 97th, 128th and 73rd, among a total of 174 countries, low in quality of representation, rights, rule of law and participation, respectively.

An intergovernmental organisation, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), on Thursday, revealed that “democracy around the world has weakened, with most countries declining in their performance, while freedom of the press suffered its most far-reaching fall in 50 years.”

Exposing how democracy has recently fared, the agency explained that its report, the 2025 Global State of Democracy (GSoD) survey, was conducted on 174 countries, aged 50 and above, using indices that measure national performance across discrete areas of democracy.

Secretary-General, International IDEA, Kevin Casas-Zamora, decried the state and fate of democracy globally, describing it as “more uncertain than it has been in our lifetimes.”

“Representation is the strongest aspect of democracy overall, according to International IDEA’s indices. Yet, amid an unprecedented 74 national elections in 2024, representation scores collapsed to their worst level in over 20 years,” Mr Casas-Zamora stated.

“To fight back, democracies need to protect key elements of democracy, like elections and the rule of law, but also profoundly reform government so that it delivers fairness, inclusion and shared prosperity,” he added.

According to the 2025 Global State of Democracy (GSoD) survey, global regression was most severe in the subject of press freedom, with 43 countries experiencing notable declines.

It denounced the attack on press freedom as the broadest decline since the beginning of the GSoD Indices dataset evaluation.

The report stated, “Many countries have declined, with 23 (35 per cent of countries in Africa) deteriorating in at least one of the measures of Credible Elections, Effective Parliament and Elected Government, especially pronounced in West Africa.”

“In the 2024 electoral super-cycle year, the global score for Representation fell to its lowest level since 2001, with seven times more countries declining than advancing. These declines occurred around the world in both low and high performing democracies,” it added.

Nigeria, the survey said, recorded a decline in judicial independence, denoting undue influence from other branches of government, especially the executive.

The report further showed that factors such as free political parties, local democracy and basic welfare were notably low in Nigeria, while access to justice, civil liberties, political equality, absence of corruption, judicial independence, civic engagement, personal integrity and security were at mid-range quality.

Highlighting an Africa-focused evaluation, the report noted that, “Twenty-three countries (35 per cent) experienced significant declines (comparing 2024 scores to 2019) in at least one of three measures – Elected Government, Credible Elections and Effective Parliament – with 20 of these countries affected by armed conflict, coups d’état or other forms of political instability.”

The agency emphasised that the “trend is particularly pronounced in West Africa, the subregion with the greatest number of declines in government, election and effective parliament structure.

On the global stage, the index stated that the weakest-performing category of most countries was in the exercise of the rule of law, with 71 countries (41 per cent) falling into the low-performance band.