An official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) sort out Permanent Voters cards (PVC) of voters at a ward,Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP)
Sir: Nigeria is fast approaching the 2027 general elections, yet the real contest is not on campaign posters or ballot boxes. It has already begun—in boardrooms, in party offices, in the flow of money, in the manipulation of structures, and in the quiet shaping of who gets to govern.
By the time candidates emerge, the people are often presented not with options, but with outcomes already negotiated. If Nigerians want to truly decide who governs them, then citizen engagement must shift upstream, into party processes, civic pressure, community organising, professional associations, student movements, faith-based networks, labour platforms, and issue-driven coalitions.
The struggle for 2027 will not be won primarily at polling units. It will be won in who controls the processes that produce the names on the ballot.
Candidate emergence remains the point at which democracy most often dies. In functional democracies, parties recruit leaders. In Nigeria, leaders often capture parties. Primaries have increasingly become ceremonial endorsements of decisions taken elsewhere. Consensus is frequently a euphemism for coercion. Aspirants who lack access to large war chests are screened out, not by ideas, but by price tags.
The consequences are severe. Competence becomes secondary to capacity to pay. Integrity becomes less valuable than loyalty to patrons. Vision loses to violence, inducement, and litigation. Citizens must therefore insist that 2027 is not merely about who wins elections, but about how candidates emerge. Transparent primaries, open membership systems, verifiable delegate lists, and community scrutiny of aspirants must become national demands, not internal party favours. If Nigerians do not democratise the gate, they cannot democratise the state.
Increasingly, however, even voting and collation are no longer seen as the final arbiters of electoral outcomes. Across election cycles, Nigerian courts have gradually replaced voters and, in many instances, the electoral commission itself as the institutions that ultimately decide who governs. Candidates who never meaningfully campaigned, who were rejected at primaries, or who lost at the polls have emerged victorious through judgments. Entire mandates have been conferred or withdrawn not at polling units, but in courtrooms.
The dangers of this trend are far-reaching. It weakens the authority of INEC and erodes public confidence in the electoral process.
Ultimately, the struggle for 2027 is not only political; it is moral and generational. It is about whether Nigerians will continue to hand over the future to closed circles or reclaim it for open society. It is about whether children inherit institutions that protect them or systems that prey on them.
History will not only record who won elections. It will record who stood when democracy was being hollowed out, and who chose comfort over country.
The ongoing political crisis in Rivers State offers Nigerians a real-time lesson in how the struggle for 2027 is already unfolding. The face-off involving the former governor, the sitting governor, and a State House of Assembly widely perceived as still being controlled by the former power structure is not merely a local quarrel.
It is an early expression of the deeper contest over who controls political machinery, institutional loyalty, and ultimately, the future electoral outcomes.
The most important work of the 2027 elections is not for politicians. It is for citizens. Now is the time to define the national agenda so that jobs, security, education, healthcare, inflation, governance reform, institutional accountability, youth inclusion, restructuring of public finance, and the political economy of development dominate public discourse. Personalities must not replace problems.
Elections do not fail in Nigeria because Nigerians do not vote. They fail because Nigerians are structurally excluded from the processes that make voting meaningful. The year 2027 offers a choice beyond candidates. It offers a choice between continuing as spectators in elite transactions or emerging as organised stakeholders in national direction.
The question before the country is no longer simply, “Who will win?” It is, “Who will decide?” If Nigerians set the stage, define the agenda, mobilise critical forces, and remain engaged from party formation to post-election accountability, then 2027 can mark the beginning of a new political culture: one where leaders emerge from society, not above it; where results reflect citizens, not arrangements; and where power answers, not commands.
Prof. Chiwuike Uba, an economist, governance expert and development consultant, can be reached via [email protected].