The floodgates are now open for electioneering campaigns for the 2027 elections. The choreographed defections and political consultations have come full circle, and over the next several months, from August 2026 to January 2027, the political machinery will officially shift into election mode. Nigeria will once again watch politicians compete for power amid the continuing struggle to hold the country together.
In these early days of the campaigns, Nigerians must ask a simple, frank and unapologetic question: What exactly are we campaigning for? Nigeria is not merely entering another political season; it is confronting an existential development crisis. It therefore cannot afford another election season built around narcissistic noise and political theatre.
Not when millions of Nigerians are struggling with the cost of food, transport, housing and other basic necessities, while insecurity continues to threaten lives, livelihoods, investment and agriculture. Certainly not when poverty remains painfully high and millions of citizens face food insecurity.
The figures cited in the original article — including estimates on poverty, food insecurity, informality and human development — paint a troubling picture of a country entering another election cycle with enormous socioeconomic challenges.
These are not badges of honour. They are evidence of a nation that has yet to translate its vast human and natural resources into broad-based prosperity.
Even where the government points to economic growth, ordinary Nigerians are entitled to ask what that growth means for their daily lives. A growing GDP means little to a family that cannot comfortably afford food, transport, housing or electricity.
This is why Nigerians are right to question economic statistics that appear disconnected from their lived experiences.
Enough of the promises
So, to every politician warming up the microphone, preparing to mount a podium at campaign rallies, buying airtime and newspaper advertising spaces, summoning supporters, unveiling posters and unleashing another avalanche of slogans, the message should be clear: Enough!
Again, enough.
Nigeria has heard enough promises of transformation, renewal, rescue, prosperity, security and hope. It is perfectly acceptable for political handshakes to multiply, defections to continue and campaign posters and slogans to dominate the public space.
But Nigerians need something more valuable than political spectacle: they need substance that responds to the realities of their lives.
If you want votes, say how you intend to secure the country, create millions of productive jobs, bring down the cost of food, transport, housing and energy, fix electricity, make agriculture productive and secure, improve schools and hospitals, raise life expectancy and turn Nigeria’s enormous population into an economic advantage rather than a reservoir of poverty and frustration.
Nigerian youth do not need another politician handing out a few laptops, wheelbarrows, sewing machines or tricycles before an election and calling it empowerment. They need an economy capable of producing millions of dignified livelihoods. That is empowerment.
If you want to talk about poverty, do not arrive with a sachet of rice or a loaf of bread and a camera crew. Explain how you intend to build a social protection system that can genuinely protect vulnerable citizens beyond the campaign season.
Do not merely announce targets. Show the numbers, timelines and strategies. Tell Nigerians who will implement the programmes, what resources will be required and how success will be measured.
Most importantly, there should be a clear commitment to accountability when promises are not delivered, rather than the familiar habit of blaming previous administrations.
Opposition politicians should understand this as well. Being against the government is not a manifesto. Criticism is not policy, and listing Nigeria’s problems does not prove that one knows how to solve them. Nigerians should therefore be spared the tired politics of blame games and the divisive, derisive and hollow combat posture of political paper tigers.
A politician who cannot explain his or her economic programme but can explain which ethnic or religious group deserves political power is not offering leadership. Such a politician is merely exploiting division as a familiar weapon of political desperation.
At a time when Nigeria’s social and political fault lines are dangerously fragile, Nigerians do not need politicians who divide them. They need leaders who understand how to govern a diverse and complex country and who can unite citizens around practical solutions to common problems.
Let the campaigns be about ideas
The media and active civil society must also rise to the occasion by raising the bar for citizen oversight. Rallies, many of which feature rented crowds, defections, endorsements and giant billboards, should not automatically be treated as evidence of leadership integrity, political strength or competence.
The media must interrogate the integrity of manifestos, challenge the mathematics behind campaign promises, fact-check claims and compare the records and antecedents of candidates. Political reporting should move beyond who defected, who endorsed whom and how many people attended a rally to ask the questions that genuinely matter to voters.
Nigerians must ask every candidate how he or she intends to achieve what they and their parties promise. When will it happen? Who will implement it? What resources will be required? What will success look like? And, perhaps most importantly, what happens if the programme fails?
These are not hostile questions. They are the minimum questions citizens should ask people seeking the enormous responsibility of governing them.
Given the serial deficits in governance and delivery, Nigerians must become more circumspect and recognise that governance is not a campaign rally. There is a sharp and fundamental difference between the two. Campaigns are filled with cheering crowds, music, slogans and carefully prepared speeches; governance begins when the cameras leave and the promises meet the hard realities of public administration.
There are no programmed cheering crowds when the money runs out, no applause when insecurity worsens and no campaign slogan can feed families that cannot afford food. There is certainly no political theatre when hospitals fail, businesses cannot generate enough power to survive, critical infrastructure remains inadequate and unemployed young people wander hopelessly without productive opportunities.
This campaign season must, therefore, be a contest of ideas, competence, credibility and measurable results rather than another spectacle of slogans, empty rhetoric and irresponsible political theatre among adults who should know better.
Nigeria has endured enough broken promises, disastrous policy experiments and politics of optics and grandstanding. This time, politicians must bring the plan, the numbers, the evidence and the courage, diligence and sense of responsibility to tell Nigerians the truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable.
Different kinds of elections
Let us state it loudly and clearly: Nigeria does not need another election that is brilliantly won only for the country to fall back into being disastrously governed, with severe consequences for the existential circumstances of its people. Winning an election is not the same as governing a nation, and political popularity cannot substitute for competence.
Nigeria needs a different and intentional trajectory, and this time, the Nigerian people must demand nothing less. Not slogans. Not political phantoms. Not recycled promises that are destined to remain unfulfilled.
To every politician, political party and campaign promoter preparing to enter the field, the demand should be straightforward: show Nigerians a plan, a strategy and clear indications of results. That is the irreducible minimum. No more, no less.
If a candidate cannot produce a credible plan for changing the country’s trajectory, that candidate should not ask Nigerians to hand over the enormous power entrusted to public office. This standard should apply equally to presidential and National Assembly candidates, as well as those seeking governorship and seats in the state legislatures.
The electorate should not be expected to vote on the basis of slogans, ethnic calculations, religious sentiments, rented crowds, defections or the volume of campaign noise. Candidates should earn votes by demonstrating competence, credibility, character and a realistic understanding of the problems confronting the people.
Nigeria is blessed with enormous human and natural resources. But years of poor leadership and failed policies have left millions struggling to realise the benefits of that potential. The 2027 elections should, therefore, be more than another contest for political power. They should be opportunities for Nigerians to demand a credible roadmap for national recovery.
Anything else, politicians and their political parties might as well leave the rest of us alone, knowing that no one wants to go through another electioneering campaign cycle that insults the collective psyche instead of offering a genuine sense of collective comeback.
This time, Nigerians deserve less noise, less nastiness, less grandstanding and less political theatre — and more substance, strategy, accountability and results.