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We will be stating the obvious by saying that the age-long well-criticised Nigeria’s obstinately poor political leadership is progressively deteriorating while the collective irresponsiveness and irresponsibility of the resulting governments are fast increasing in intensity and scale irrespective of the loud outcries, positive criticisms and suggestions within, and out of, the country. It currently appears as if the good people of Nigeria are somewhat willingly or coercively stuck with a political leadership cadre that is “licensed” to slight and take them for a ride. Indeed, insolence is not exclusive to the “leaders” emanating from any of the existing political parties; this is a case of “…..no difference between six and half a dozen”.
Against what obtains in today’s reality, those constituting the aforementioned political leadership cadre present themselves as persons possessing monopoly of “knowledge” for running the polity. In fact, they are impertinently unapologetic about giving the impression that nothing makes sense to them except their idea(s) or the one(s) originating from their circle populated by their fellow nitwits and bootlickers! These are the people, to whose hands, Nigerians have committed governance! To these characters, their teachers (at all levels of formal/informal education) and other intellectuals/scholars are dim-witted! These silly mediocrities believe that they should not be criticised or challenged. They are often quick to say “you, too, go and contest an election” the same way they arrogantly say “go to court” after rigging an election.
With or without voters in Nigerian elections, these crooks, even if unpopular, are sure of being “elected”. They brag about this type of “undemocratic democracy” that is being run without voters! Once they are “elected” or appointed into political offices, those well-known nitwits transmogrify into geniuses! When they get into power, these nitwits-turned-overnight-geniuses talk down on others in manners revealing the deep inferiority complex they have long been suffering from irrespective of the politesse expected from them for occupying political offices. Hence, as the new sheriffs, or returning sheriffs, in town, everyone must bow to them! They misbehave and audaciously act like wrong pegs in the wrong places expecting to be respected. Surely, they may be respected by dunderheads but are expectedly ignored by sound minds!
Yet, ignoring those nitwits has not, and will not, aid in achieving the positive changes desired by the good people of Nigeria. Those scoundrels have demonstrably shown that they will not willingly change for the better! For instance, the way insecurity in this country is handled is a case in point. Instead of forestalling this challenge in line with their electoral promises that have always been turning out to be fake, you will hear those in authority, today, giving a series of inadmissible excuses similar to, or worse than, those given by those in authority yesterday; utterly, this is more of the same badly fermented wine in “new” vessels!
These shamefully shameless characters are not acquiring political power for the purpose of solving identified challenges for societal benefit! Political offices are solely for extraction by these fake statesmen/women! The reality being described has worsened to the extent that those entrusted with powers to protect Nigerians are now differentiating between kidnapping and abduction! How do we explain the descent into this abyss? It was unimaginable in the recent past, in Nigeria, that someone could be seized against his/her will by non-state actors while state actors will be advancing silly and untenable excusal reasons bordering on uselessly useless technicalities and definitions of the types of criminalities!
Well now, let us digress a bit. The Nigeria’s Senate, on the 24th of June, 2026, passed a federal executive-backed bill seeking to decentralise policing by moving it to the concurrent legislative list and allow the establishment of state policing structure that would operate concurrently with the existing federal police system in order to ensure public safety/public order in the country. Consequently, this bill was expected to be duly transmitted by the Senate to the House of Representatives for harmonisation and concurrence.
Earlier, on the 11th of June, 2026, the House of Representatives also initially “…..approved [their own] constitutional amendments bill affecting some provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) including those creating the legal basis for State Police Services”. However, the (proposed) harmonisation and concurrence processes (that were supposed to be held concerning the bills from Senate and House of Representatives) were halted on the 14th of July, 2026, because the House of Representatives (also known as the Green Chamber) rescinded its earlier (11th of June, 2026) resolution after receiving, and opting instead to consider, a fresh federal executive-backed proposed bill transmitted to it by Nigeria’s president
This Executive Bill was eventually passed during plenary in the Green Chamber on the 23rd of July, 2026. Procedurally, once the Senate and House of Representatives are on the same page concerning the passing of this executive-backed bill, it will then be forwarded to the 36 States’ Houses of Assembly for ratification. According to the constitution, for this bill to be ready for Nigeria’s president’s assent to this constitutional amendment, it must be approved by at least two-thirds (24) of the 36 Houses of Assembly.
From the perspective of those clamouring for “restructuring” or “true federalism” in Nigeria, success of this proposed constitutional amendment may be perceived as a welcome development. However, the bill has not been presented to the public for inputs the same way the country’s 1999 constitution (as amended) has never been, and is still not, the Nigerian people’s constitution! Then, how do Nigerians expect something to be placed on nothing? We are not being pessimistic but realistic by pointing at what has been publicly discussed! Honest experts in constitutionalism did score Nigeria’s constitution a poor mark!
This constitution (is it Decree 24?) “…..written and decreed into existence by [some]…..putschists mainly to cover their (putschists’) tracks…..” was not written with the ordinary people – comprising the majority of the population – in mind! Thus, the “disputed” document has not delivered the expected “dividends of democracy” to the ordinary people and it “…..cannot continue to be ‘patched’ forever!” This reminds us of a television interview in which Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, 1925–1965) sarcastically states that “…..when a black man stands up [in the US] talking about his constitutional rights, he’s out of his mind…..” concerning the (then?) perceived US’s white supremacists constitution.
We have just used Malcolm X’s sarcasm above to illustrate the reality of Nigeria’s common people whose country’s (warped) “federal” constitution has not been serving, as it (constitution) has been rigged to make some Nigerians more “Nigerian” than others! Hence, why is good governance expected in such a place? Bad governance does not, and cannot, exist and flourish in a vacuum. There are people, common people, (many of whom are serious victims of bad governance) providing oxygen and other nourishment, for it to thrive! We mean that many of those suffering from the consequences of bad governance are preposterously enabling it! In essence, followers are visibly contributing to Nigeria’s political challenges.
The foregoing is a sad experience in this country, where identity politics – anchored on ethnicity, religion and region – trumps all the reasonable sensibleness aimed at collective positive national development! This is not a new phenomenon, only that it is increasingly reinforced by poor quality human beings that are allowed to hover, uninhibitedly, over Nigeria’s political landscape. These are the ones controlling political narratives while many Nigerians have either gone to sleep or joined the scoundrels in sharing from “cursed bread/butter” and the crumbs! This is unsustainable, based on time-testedness of historical experience in parts of the world where this nonsensicality has been fiercely confronted and overpowered.
Concerning the insecurity threatening to swallow Nigeria, we have always asked: what lessons have Nigerian politicians learnt from those “developed” countries they visit and feel safe in, without the retinue of security men/women that are around them back in Nigeria? How is the security of life and property ensured in those places? Are they applying rocket science equations to ensure the safety of life and property in those places? We agree that some probabilities for engaging in criminality do exist in those places but how are these handled there? Are there untouchable criminals (like in Nigeria) in those places?
Is Nigeria bereft of sound minds? Should Nigeria not challenge its intellectuals/scholars for possible solutions to the experienced insecurity instead of the gross idiocy being displayed in a polity designed for extracting public resources that ultimately benefit foreign interests? Those holding political offices may not care but they need to know that the number of people getting obviously annoyed and impatient with governments’ time-wasting and somewhat insulting empty condolence press releases is increasing, daily!
These are all too familiar press releases that assure nobody and ensure nothing positive but blame game and regurgitation of earlier repeated gibberish with the change of dates, names and places! Meaning that they have these written texts in expectation of new insecurity challenge(s); the only thing they do is to change the dates, names and places on those texts, each time! It is clear that those in the saddle of political leadership today are not better than those they replaced. Certainly, we are still being told the same story!
Nigeria, with its enviable bundle of potential, is behind time; it has to move away from its present state of futurelessness! Clearly, analogue mindset cannot power Nigeria towards digital trajectories. It is either the antiquated mindset of the current ruling elite changes in order to make use of modern solutions or they are flushed out and get replaced by those who will embrace modern solutions for the constantly evolving insecurity challenges. We have always believed that Nigerian youths are too vibrant for this stagnancy!
The reader should note that we are not referring to the compromised youths who are even worse than their “old codgers” and/or “old cargoes” forerunners! Those youths are comfortable with a futureless Nigeria! Hope may be dimming but with sincerity of purpose, sanity is strongly expected to prevail in Nigeria. It is just a matter of positive hard work. Luckily, Nigeria has the sane people for making it a better country on the long run; however, it is the duty of us all to identify these sane people starting with self-assessments!
Erakhuemen is a professor in the Department of Forest Re City, Nigeria
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Opinion
One thing the Glitterer, this Glitterer, does from time to time now is to read old books. In fact, he has been reading the ancient books and works of all shades, books and essays that he had read before. The first time one reads a book or any work, one, generally speaking, does not read it at all very carefully or carefully – one just runs through it for the story or narration or for whatever it is worth or not worth. One has to keep re-reading, one has to keep one’s running and re-running – through any work to be run and re-run through repeatedly. Every time he feels like it this Glitterer reads Shakespeare up to our Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, JP Clark, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and others straight through. Clearly, the Glitterer does not claim to have any definite or well laid out plan of reading, through almost everything called printed words or books. And he really likes anything, any printed stuff, that is good.
As the Glitterer reads books, so also does he read men – especially Nigerian men in public offices. He tries to learn something about them. His leaning, however, tilts toward Nigerian central ministers, and spokespersons of the helmspersons who appointed them. Now the Glitterer’s distinct preference is for two men who are in President Tinubu’s administration. Two of these men are among the key ministers/officials in President Tinubu’s government. The second person is a non-minister whose power rivals that of any cabinet member, derived entirely from the influence President Tinubu grants him. In other words, the second individual is a non-minister who holds immense influence, seemingly outranking any official minister due to President Tinubu’s favour.
Let the Glitterer begin with the second individual, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, a non-minister, whose official designation is Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy. Without an ounce of doubt, this specific role was created for Mr. Onanuga as a carefully custom-designated portfolio to “enhance institutional communication and synergy between the Presidency and Federal Ministers”. He is the first to receive my attention here because he is an artistic communicator who seemingly has not been communicating as an artistic communicator. He has overwhelmingly overwhelmed the official Minister of Information and National Orientation in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s cabinet. How many of us know that Alhaji Muhammed Idris (Malogi) is the designated minister of the central Ministry of Information and Orientation? In arithmetical or mathematical calculation or percentage, the answer would fetch a lowly low score.
Bayo Onanuga has an answer for every laughable or serious statement, situation, or puzzle relating to anything under the sun regarding President Tinubu’s administration. Bayo Onanuga is an all-knowing insider or spokesperson who has an explanation, excuse or solution for absolutely everything that happens in President Tinubu’s government. This clue to every puzzle in Tinubu’s administration is never confused. He understands the hidden motives or inner workings behind every event. He performs every laughable or un-laughable task and addresses any such statement. He addresses everything, from ridiculous political gaffes and jokes to dead-serious policies and crises. There is no zero limit to his knowledge or commentary regarding this specific presidency. No one should mis-understand the Glitterer. He admires this former guerrilla journalist a great deal. I chuckled as the Glitterer merely did when asked to compare Bayo Onanuga and Lai Mohammed. Who still remembers the latter? The Glitterer does not have a clue. What is appealing to the Glitterer is that the above sentences combine to give him a quasi-rounded picture of the polished President Tinubu’s spokesperson who very recently took Peter Obi the “nomadic” presidential candidate of the Obidients to the cleaners without polish – as always.
Now let the composer ask a curious question: Is it not curious that Bayo Onanuga has up to my moment of writing not addressed a curious scenario in Engineer David Umahi’s Uburu country home residence in his Ebonyi State in the South-East? Very recently, a woman called Mary Habila of Kaduna State origin died on the powerful Minister’s premises alledgely in questionable or suspicious circumstances.
The central Minister of Works, one of President Tinubu’s very beloved ministers – always in the news for the wrong reasons allegedly – spoke and spoke at different times about what happened (or that did not happen) to the fine woman who has died. His different versions of what happened (or that did not happen), no matter how crazy (or not crazy) they are (or were), could have been given plausibility if (only) Bayo Onanuga, the artistic spinner of sunny sentences, had come out to embellish the defence of our Honourable Minister of Works, the one and only professor of roads and bridges in the Tinubu government.
I saw the powerful and influential minister, a fellow nomadic politician like Peter Obi, on Arise Television not long ago explaining something relating to a poor portion of the coastal road still under construction. My memory went to Benin-Sapele-Warri Highway that has been under re-reconstruction for years now. Nothing is seemingly going well on that tragically ugly road despite the promise and assurance Mr. David Umahi gave in the past to fix it goldenly without (a) tragic delay. That was then. Money dey burn now as the road dey burn our hopes and joy. I have penned several articles pertaining to this wonderfully bad Highway in times past. We dey suffer for Niger Delta – especially we people of Warri. We hear the coastal road that the road and bridge engineer is birthing for Nigeria will no longer pass through our terrain and territory. Na true? Who you don corner and kolobi our part to?
Now before the Glitterer suspends this discourse, he wishes to congratulate Big Man David Umahi on the graduation of his twin children from Sheffield University, England. Arise Television beamed intensely how the minister-in-the-news sunned himself in the warm glow of his gratitude to his twin boy and girl who graduated in England rather than in Nigeria. What ample money in pounds sterling well spent!
And Oh dear Bayo Onanuga! Join me to congratulate Minister David Umahi on the milestone. But do not do so with any kind of guerilla salute.
What “two advertisements” in one picture for two of the President’s highly favoured men! And what bombardments will the ex-guerilla journalist unleash on the Glitterer for advertising what he has advertised! No matter what he does, I admire Bayo Onanuga for doing a job he was hired to do. But has the Glitterer read him and the professor of road-less roads and bridge-less bridges well? What a question!
Opinion
What Ails The Civil Service? Fixing the Bureaucracy To Get The Basics Right
Without mincing words, since independence in 1960, the consecutive governments that have been on the national saddle to transform the Nigerian state have been concerned with reforming the civil service. This came from the recognition that the bureaucracy is a key component of the governance apparatuses for national development and democratic governance. At the risk of stating the obvious, it bears noting that the civil service is designated in its unfolding history as the hub of policymaking professionalism established and structured to backstop the government in terms of planning, designing, policy advisory, and the execution of policies, projects and programmes. In this regard, it therefore serves ultimately as the institutional memory, record repository and structural hub for governance continuity and permanence. In other words, the civil service is the expert administrative domain for policy intelligence and analysis, regulatory control, project management, national performance and change management; as well as action and policy-engaged research that are meant to activate a governance business model that—in partnership with other institutions and think tanks—can transform governance into a good experience for the citizens.
In Nigeria’s administrative history, the significance of the golden era of the civil service in the 1960s and the 1970s lies in how these core functions were positioned in the system to articulate an effective and efficient institution that was a formidable part of the nascent Nigerian state at the immediate post-independence period. And this is even all the more commendable as the civil service then was just still evolving in terms of organizational development that was heading towards institutionalization.
Quite unfortunately, an initial undoing of the service at independence was that its status, relative to other institutions, was somewhat over-rated and over-developed with considerable consequences for its continuing efficiency and functionality. For instance, the thought that the bureaucracy was sufficiently self-sufficient contributed in no small measure to its evident political neglect in terms of government’s commitment and investment in its institutional and professional development beyond wages and remuneration consideration until 1972—an investment that would have consolidated its maturation process.
Furthermore, the increasing success of the system in its early years and up to the mid-1970s generated a sort of structural deafness to institutional reforms, especially those deriving from the managerial revolution that was then reshaping public administration and the public service profession. This constitutes, for instance, a key reason why the reform imports of the Udoji Commission report of 1974, as well as the Philips reform of 1988, that could have connected the civil service system with the fundamental transformation of its operating systems were rejected. This rejection forced the service to miss out on a trajectory of evolution and growth that connects with the life-cycle of organizational development.
The series of reform agendas that consecutive Nigerian governments have put together have all been concerned with the damage control involved in putting the Nigerian civil service system back on track, and reconnected with its institutionalization process. From the Udoji to the Ayida reform commissions, and from the National Strategy for Public Service Reform (NSPSR) to the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (2021-2025), these reform agendas have all been designed with a grand vision of a comprehensive transformation of the administrative system. The critical issue, unfortunately, is that many of the reforms need a firm and fertile administrative ground that permit them to take root and flower so as to achieve what they have been intended to do. A comprehensive reform agenda needs to have the administrative reform basics already in place if it is to succeed. To overlook these fundamental administrative processes and practices that sustained traditional public administration praxis is, to quote Marie Curie the French physicist, to fall into a situation where “one never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”
The starting point of any formidable reform therefore is to get the basics of administrative reform right. In my critical assessment over the many years I have been researching the system, what ails the civil service system in Nigeria can be summed into four cogent systemic issues: one, the quality of the civil service bureaucratic efficiency; two, the systemic hindrances to service delivery and the weak performance accountability framework; three, the inadequate level of professionalism of civil/public servants to backstop the current status of the system; and four, the lack of political will by the political elite to generate the requisite passion and invest resources, incentives, sacrifices and legacy commitment that keep institutional reform afloat and focused to its logical and administrative end.
Getting the basics right will involve two dimensions, negative and positive. The negative side has to do with confronting the fundamental cause of institutional decline and the terrible consequences on service delivery and hence democratic governance. The starting point for this is to confront, with required measure of political will, the bad politics that the Nigerian state and her political class play with public institutions involved in and with the dynamics of governance. In other words, public institutions like the civil service system are embedded within a political culture that allows the political class to take them as spaces for managing political patronage rather than as instruments for enabling service delivery to the citizens. These bad politics and bad administrative indices that have undermined the effectiveness and efficiency of the system include: (i) elite capture in the public service; (ii) passion without knowledge and conception-reality gaps including a lack of sufficient appreciation that public administration has a theoretical foundation; (iii) overreliance on imported models as part of international donors packages; and (iv) weak action research culture that ought to serve as the template for interrogating and adapting received models for adaptation to fit local peculiarities.
On the positive side, getting the basics right is concerned with rethinking and recalibrating the fundamentals of doing government business. This will involve bringing about reform at the levels of processes, structures, ethics and efficiency. Indeed, a most fundamental aspect of this has to do with changing the orientation of the public servants through a robust competency-driven and people-centred re-professionalization. The public servant is the emblem of what the public service system represents, especially to the citizens who are supposed to feel the reassuring impacts of the performances of the system. In other words, the importance of the public servant, and her perception by the citizens derives from the fact that she stands in-between the state and the people.
To therefore retrofit, reform and remodel the civil service system as a strategic partner to the government in the short, medium and long terms, we need to cast critical attention to preliminary but critical reform actions which must be adopted if they are not available yet in the reform agenda and their change management strategies and implementation plans. And if these elements are already adopted and embedded into ongoing reform agenda and measures, then they need to be deepened, consolidated and implemented with utmost urgency. The starting point of this remodelling of reform effort is to give attention to the gatekeeping of the administrative system as a value-based institution that generates specific values and virtues which officers are required to learn as part of the entry-level gatekeeping assessment, induction and career management dynamics.
This automatically dovetails into a (re)professionalization of the core cadres through mechanisms that include posting, performance appraisal, consequence management, mentorship, training and reskilling to beef up the service institutional IQ. This also involves rethinking the pay and remuneration structure that goes a long way in restoring the government to its status as an employer of choice.
At the next level, gatekeeping the professionalism and vocational status of the system also requires, as an immediate corollary, the strengthening of the civil service internal control and democratic accountability mechanisms, and the streamlining of regulations and business procedures. These deepen the rigor that goes into monitoring public procurement and expenditure tracking, and the effectiveness of audit function and parliamentary oversight that support sound financial management. These mechanisms reinforce the open government and the emergence of other transparent processes including participatory budgeting, service charter, right to information (ROI), whistleblowing, etc.
One of the further consequences of this reprofiling is optimizing the public service to be able to take great advantage of the potential of the public-private partnership infrastructure to boost service delivery to the citizens. This also feeds into the launch of a new productivity movement that implements a national waste reduction plan, and a new national assets and facility management strategy integrated into a national management culture.
The public service remodelling must also confront the “bureaucratic phenomenon”—the red tapes and rule-based conformism that support bureau-pathology—the structural inability of the system to become efficient and effective. This demands, as an imperative, a cultural adjustment, mental and ethical remodelling programmes that target what it means to be a pubic servant who is public-spirited, spiritual, professional and ethically motivated. The ethical and professional deficit of the system is arrested by enforcing values through the establishment of specific institutional ethical boundaries—like the codes of conduct and codes of ethics—that much more rigorously enforce codes that regulate how public servants can administratively and democratically behave, as well as the limit of the ethical choices they can make.
In line with global best practices, the reform remodelling cannot take off as the motivation for efficiency and effectiveness if it fails to activate the transitioning of the public service from the traditional Weberian bureaucracy into a neo-Weberian new public service. But this must be done without dismantling the traditional legal protections and structural dynamics of the due process and embedded controls. This involves a significant reengineering of the standard operating system of the MDAs away from the rigid, rule-driven “I-am-directed” administrative system towards a more hybrid approach that integrates performance-based management and technology-enabled service delivery founded on measurable development outcomes and impacts. This neo-Weberian system prioritizes citizens as customers and co-producers of pubic value, and optimizes citizen-centric and user-friendly services; and therefore, require the review of administrative law to position the citizen as the customer within a rights-based framework with enforceable claims against the state as a duty-bearer.
This transformation of the standard operating system will have a lot to do with the capacity of the public service to implement a technology-enabled governance digital transformation. This will, among other things, strengthen the system’s capacity for evidence-based or data-driven decision-making motivated by data analytics. It will not only establish digital public services that upgrade operational efficiency, but will also mean moving from rule compliance to tracking tangible outputs and outcomes while implementing clear key performance indicators to measure efficiency and impacts. Success will then start to be measured not just by budget performance as legally mandated, it will start to be evaluated against outputs, outcomes and impact metrics inviolably.
Tweaking the operating system enables it to achieve a structural redesign that institutionalizes a decentralized authority framework that facilitates managerial discretion so that rigid vertical seniority-based hierarchies are replaced with a flatter structure. This flat structure devolves operational autonomy to frontline managers to be able to deploy resources as long as they meet negotiated performance targets, approved resource utilization plans and service-level agreements. There will, at the back-end, be a total shift from incremental, historical and line-item expenditures, to funding tied to return on investment, accrual accounting, activity-based costing, performance budgeting and outcomes, with poorly performing activities and services receiving red alerts-induced interventions, reallocation of resources, and operational audits.
The Nigerian civil service system can only carry the proof of its institutional reformation if it first bears the burden of getting the basics right. These constitutes the first dose of administrative antibiotics that precedes more comprehensive reform agenda.
. Olaopa, is a Professor of Public Administration, and the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission.
Opinion
2027: Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
The 2027 election is presenting almost a zero-sum option for Nigerians. On the one hand, there is the APC, which arguably has succeeded in changing Nigeria for the worse and reduced politics and governance to the level of sycophancy and propaganda, showering praises on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and celebrating a so-called achievement that can at best be described as offensive and insensitive given the harsh realities facing Nigerians. In less than 12 years, APC has succeeded in weakening the economy beyond any rational expectation – corruption, poverty, criminality, insecurity, mass unemployment, rooftop inflation, millions of out of school children, etc. are the new normal.
Political competition has been eliminated and is no longer a factor regulating electoral contest. Instead, vote-buying and other sophisticated acts of electoral manipulations using public re winners of elections
On the other hand, as opposition, whether as ADC, NDC, the legitimate PDP or any other party, we are unable to maintain unity on account of personal ambitions of key opposition political leaders. Ideally, Nigerians expected opposition leaders to project some patriotic readiness to make personal sacrifices in the overall interests of the country. Rather than being disposed to making personal sacrifices, opposition political leaders, unfortunately, reduced the challenge of producing an alternative to APC and whatever they symbolise, to engineering politics that is allergic to competition and moving in the direction of consolidating bad governance in its worst forms. The end goal remains, to achieve personal ambitions of emerging as or producing candidates for elections. The claims about commitment to democracy are therefore empty, used to win political hegemony without accountability.
Across board, the character of an average Nigerian politician is about the same, it is all about achieving personal ambition. While acknowledging that there are certainly variations in the ways these attributes manifest in individual political leaders, overall, the desperation to win political hegemony and emerge victorious in elections with hardly any corresponding strong commitment to addressing challenges facing the country seems to be the preoccupation. Outside appearances and the personalities emerging as candidates for the 2027 elections, there is hardly any substantial thing distinguishing the actors contesting the elections.
Painfully, Nigerians hang on the thread of hope that the 2027 elections will produce better leaders for the country with the opposition leaders believing that the poor performance of the APC and President Tinubu is enough to produce electoral victory. Nothing can be further from the truth. Certainly, Nigerians are not happy with the performance of President Tinubu and APC governments at all levels. The palpability of the anger of Nigerians with the APC governments at all levels equates to living in a teargassed environment. Sadly, rather than the opposition political leaders taking steps to win the confidence of citizens as the bearers of solutions to Nigeria’s problems, and to that extent becoming popular and winning mass followership, knee jerk actions and old approaches characteristically are the defining attributes.
As things are, the opposition is repeating the same old mistakes that produced the electoral victory of the APC . Lack of unity among the opposition was largely responsible for the electoral victory of APC. The same reality is manifesting itself again with the same two leading opposition personalities emerging as candidates against President Tinubu and APC. Consequently, and alarmingly, the possibility of APC winning the 2027 elections, notwithstanding the pains it has inflicted on the lives of citizens on account of its impulsively poorly implemented planless policies, is quite high.
With such glaring reality, the prospect of high voter apathy during the 2027 elections is better imagined. Unless something drastic happens, if votes are to count, the 2027 elections may not register total of more than 10 million votes in the Presidential election. A high voter apathy could further heighten electoral malpractices resulting in declaration of landslide, moon slide, space slide electoral victory for whoever can rig better. In other words, the prospect of winning the 2027 elections will be based on who has the higher or more efficient rigging capacity.
The most frightening thing is that even if the opposition as it is today, whether as represented by ADC, NDC or any other party, is able to muster the strength and win the 2027 elections, by whatever means, there is nothing to give confidence that we can produce a better government. The possibility of continuing on the current downward slide of dashing the expectations of Nigerians may virtually be on the same scale and level with President Tinubu and APC. With reference to, for instance, developing structures to hold elected leaders accountable, the opposition is upholding the same political framework that subordinates the party organisation to elected political leaders. In the same way meetings of organs of APC are not holding, meetings of organs of ADC, NDC and perhaps all the other opposition parties are holding erratically, not as prescribed by their constitutions. Therefore, almost similar to the ways President Tinubu is exercising prerogative and holding APC and its leaders accountable to him, both Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi are orienting themselves in the same way to emerge as Presidents that will subordinate the organs of their party to their control.
Internal debates and consultations within the opposition towards producing democratic decisions are absent. Graveyard silence in the midst of high public expectations defines activities of the opposition. The question as to whether the country and whatever represents democracy is doomed resonates in the mind of every rational Nigerian. What is it that can be done in the circumstance is a dilemma that confronts most citizens. The campaign leading to the formation of the coalition based on the unity of opposition political leaders gave a glimmer of hope about the prospect of political change in 2027.
Whether the change will equate to resolving the challenges facing the country and better conditions in the country is a different matter.
As things are, as an advocate of the coalition and a principal actor both in its conception and negotiating what is emerging out of it, one is highly troubled. With every passing day, a combination of inaction and replication of old approaches is sending worrying signals that the 2027 election is presenting Nigerians with a choice between the devil and deep blue sea. Inaction regarding consideration or identification of proposed initiatives on how to resolve challenges is to say the least worrying.
Consequently, just like the APC is relying on sycophancy and propaganda to campaign for President Tinubu, the opposition is also resorting to propaganda to promote the candidature of Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi.
It needs to be said, with a high measure of respect to both Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi that the difference between them is highly artificial. By extension, the difference between all the current political leaders in the country, unless substantiated or grounded in a well defined political structure that outlines a clear direction that is intended for the country, will be wishful thinking. Without a strong party whose leadership and organs are empowered to regulate the conduct of Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi, the propensity that they will also disappoint Nigerians on the same scale as APC and President Tinubu, if not worse, is also high. What can make any of these opposition leaders stand out and earn the confidence of Nigerians that they can competently resolve Nigeria’s challenges is if they are able to subordinate themselves and be accountable to their party.
Being accountable to the party and ensuring that the party is able to regulate the conduct of elected leaders is also a function of the quality of leaders and ability to mobilise funding and run affairs of the party. These are challenges that both ADC, NDC and all the opposition parties are taking for granted. The inability to resolve these challenges is responsible for what has debased APC to being a parastatal of government. As a result, the party is unable to control or regulate activities of elected leaders at the national level such that party leaders are reduced to being appointees of the President. Instead of the President being accountable to the party, APC and its functionaries at the national level are subordinated to being appointees of President Tinubu.
Is this the model ADC, NDC and other opposition parties want to produce? Partly because there is hardly any evidential reality to confirm the opposite, Nigerians are sceptical about the opposition. Beyond scepticism, the commitments and patriotism of both Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi is being called to question. If their commitment and patriotism is about resolving Nigeria’s challenges, why are they unable to work together? If truly their objective is about defeating APC and President Tinubu, why are they unable to recognise that once they are divided, it is as good as conceding electoral victory to APC and President Tinubu? Do these leaders, Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi, actually recognise the danger of conceding electoral victory to APC and President Tinubu and what it means to their constituents?
Somehow, the issue of what the present political reality means for Nigerians appears lost in the sentimental debate about power rotation or shift. Across every part of the country, the urgency to bring an end to the calamity of bad governance is real. As much as factors of inclusivity must be respected, the campaign of power shift or rotation must not be used to perpetrate bad governance. So also, the desperation to mobilise regional votes must not lose sight of the objective to get rid of bad governance. Interpreting this in terms of what it means to the constituents of Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi will lead to the question as to whether both leaders are committed to ensuring that the Northern part of the country is put on the path of recovery and the South-East can win back its status as an equal partner in the Nigerian federation, exercising equal power to produce elected Presidents.
An elementary assessment hardly suggests any better prospect that the Northern part of the country can be put on the path of any recovery if APC wins the 2027 elections. Similarly, if APC and President Tinubu win the 2027 elections the prospect of South-East winning back its status to emerge as an equal partner in the Nigerian federation will be reduced to the level of at best only producing a Vice President in 2031 based on the current power rotation or shift arrangement. Is that what Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi want for their people? Does this mean that the two leaders will be willing to sacrifice the larger interests of their constituents in pursuit of their personal political ambitions?
The same questions can be addressed to Mr. Rotimi Amaechi and Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso who are running mates to Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi respectively. In the same way, other political leaders from across the length and breadth of the country, should be asked the same questions. The long and short of it is that Nigeria is confronted with the challenge of having political leaders who are dominantly oriented to pursue personal political ambitions. Nigerians need to consider new strategies that can enable the country to break away from the current generation of self-serving political leaders.
Accordingly, we, as Nigerians, need to demand that if the opposition as is currently constituted want citizens to take them seriously, they must go back to the negotiation table and work out an agreement that would enable them to contest the 2027 elections as a united front. As part of the agreement, the challenge of building a strong party, which can hold its elected representatives accountable must be well outlined. Failure to work out such clear terms of agreement by the Nigerian opposition political leaders, Nigerians should not invest considerable expectations in the 2027 elections.
Once that becomes the reality of the 2027 elections, patriotic Nigerians should take up the challenge of organising a new political platform post 2027 with the objective of mobilising Nigerians to break away from the current generation of self-serving politicians. Nigeria and Nigerians deserve better political leaders. Why should a country as endowed as Nigeria be condemned to such an incorrigible generation of political leaders? The opposition, led by Alh. Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and all the other opposition leaders must be challenged to prove their patriotic disposition and commitment to the well-being, national development and the growth of Nigerian democracy beyond their personal ambitions. Once the contest of the 2027 elections is narrowed to prosecuting the personal ambitions of opposition political leaders, Nigerians should not waste their time.
Nigerians are expectantly watching – Alh. Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and all the other opposition leaders must demonstrate a stronger commitment to defeat APC and President Tinubu beyond achieving personal ambitions of becoming President and Vice President. The country has invested everything in the current generation of political leaders. Making individual sacrifices by opposition political leaders to ensure the end to bad unaccountable governance in the country is not asking for too much. For 2027 elections to produce better leaders and responsive government, the opposition must unite based on clear agreements that can make elected leaders accountable to citizens through their parties.
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