With barely a year into the midterm stretch of this administration, the drums of 2027 are already beating loudly across Nigeria’s political landscape. Billboards are resurfacing. Consultations are under way. Strategic defections are being plotted. Subtle campaign machinery is grinding into motion. It is as though governance has been politely excused from the room to make way for politics.
In a country grappling with inflation, insecurity, unemployment and a deepening cost-of-living crisis, this early obsession with 2027 is both troubling and telling. Elections in Nigeria are constitutionally scheduled, predictable and periodic. Yet, politics here is permanent; governance is seasonal.
Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigerians were promised bold reforms and renewed hope. While some difficult economic decisions have been taken, including subsidy removal and currency reforms, the social safety nets meant to cushion the impact remain fragile and uneven. Citizens are still waiting for tangible relief. Markets are volatile, small businesses are gasping, and public confidence is thinning.
This is precisely when governance should be at its most focused, most creative and most compassionate. Instead, political actors are recalibrating alliances, measuring regional voting strengths and testing campaign narratives. Governors are distracted by succession battles. Lawmakers are weighing re-election permutations. Ministers are calculating political capital.
The danger is clear: when politics dominates too early, policy suffers. Critical reforms are slowed to avoid offending blocs of voters. Necessary but unpopular decisions are postponed. Appointments are influenced less by competence and more by electoral arithmetic. Governance becomes hostage to ambition.
Nigeria has seen this pattern before. The build-up to previous election cycles often paralysed institutions months — sometimes years — ahead of the actual vote. Projects stalled. Budgets became bargaining tools. Oversight turned theatrical. By the time ballots were cast, governance had already been sacrificed at the altar of political survival.
The tragedy is that Nigerians do not have the luxury of political distraction. Farmers in the North battling banditry, traders in Onitsha struggling with low patronage, young graduates navigating a hostile job market — these citizens need leadership anchored in solutions, not slogans.
Democracy thrives on competition, but it survives on performance. Campaigns are necessary, but governance is urgent. The true campaign for 2027 should be competence. The strongest manifesto any incumbent can present is measurable progress: safer highways, stable prices, reliable power, transparent institutions.
Political actors must resist the temptation to convert every policy decision into a campaign chess move.
For now, Nigeria does not need another campaign season. It needs governance — steady, serious and sustained.
