Democratic transition in Nigeria : perils and prospects

thenationonlineng.net · Mar 1, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Tatalo Alamu March 1, 2026 by Tatalo Alamu Once again, Nigeria faces a troubling conjuncture with what has been described as a make or mar election around the corner. Many experts and leading political practitioners have averred that the forthcoming general elections will either make or break Nigeria. The stakes are so high. The country is awash with social, religious and political forces of centrifugal potency. The reality, however, is that Nigeria has survived many doomsday predictions. The reports about the nation’s death often appear to be grossly exaggerated. Nigeria has managed to survive many of its professional obituarists. Somehow, in every period of national madness, there is always an intervening moment of clarity and lucidity which allows the nation to pull back from the brink. But there is a limit to which a nation can rely on its legendary luck, particularly where and when it is not in control of external circumstances. This time around, the pressures from outside the country are equally forbidding. As the winds from across the Sahara Desert bring the wonderful fragrance of people’s power, the harmattan from the Sudan has brou ght the smell of national disintegration and peaceful separation. From Libya, the winds have brought the odour of gore and the decomposition of a brutal despotism that will not willingly vacate the scene. Taken either together or separately, all these developments are a telling riposte to those who believe that the post-colonial nation-state is an inviolable divine space which can continually tolerate horrors and execrable cruelties visited on a section of the populace. That these momentous and cataclysmic events should be crowded into a few weeks merely confirms Lenin’s brilliant observation that there are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen. Whether it is the Sudan solution or the Maghrebian resolution, it is clear that Nigeria faces a critical hour of decision. Ever since independence on October 1st 1960, Nigeria has lurched from one electoral crisis to another. Elections in Nigeria are a highly contentious affair, marked by controversy and violent disputation. Virtually all the presidential elections held in Nigeria after independence have gone up to the Supreme Court for legal adjudication. Some of these elections have led directly to military coup or virtual paralysis of the state. Given this background and the dynamic nature of the Nigerian intelligentsia, it is surprising that nobody or group up till now have thought about an electoral Handbook which will serve as a proactive intellectual guide and practical pathfinder for the electoral process. This is the first time this kind of Handbook is being contemplated or published and this in itself is a historic and defining moment for the nation. If anything, it goes to underscore how free and fair elections have assumed a centrality in the destiny of the nation and the resolution of the highly vexed national question. This is rightly so. After three highly controversial and increasingly farcical post-military elections, it is obvious that it can no longer be business as usual in Nigeria. There are great stirrings across the land. This is not some obtuse or uninformed scare-mongering. In several countries where elections have been held as a talisman for persisting and subsisting national questions, terrible calamities have always followed. Electoral disorders are usually a symptom or a short hand for a more fundamental national affliction. In Algeria, Zimbabwe, once in Nigeria and briefly in Kenya, elections have led to civil wars. In Ivory Coast, a fresh round of elections has once again brought the ill-starred nation to the brink of total anarchy and irreversible disintegration. Several times Nigeria has also travelled this route only to be miraculously reprieved at the edge of the abyss. But there are limits to how far a nation can push its legendary luck. Read Also: Nigerian pilgrims safe in Israel, says CAN chairman In the face of this bleak prognosis, let us then leaven this preface with some good news. Good news is a wonderful elixir to a people tottering at the edge of despair and despondency. That this electoral handbook was ever conceptualized or published at all is a wonderful tribute to the resilience and indomitable spirit of Nigerians. No matter the odds or the hostile circumstances, however bleak the prognosis or harsh the prospects, Nigerians never give up. It is heartwarming to note that despite the democratic reverses and the national trauma occasioned by a series of electoral debacles, Nigerians still hope for a great future as a fully democratic and prosperous nation. This is why the editors and contributors of this handbook ought to be congratulated for their abiding faith in the Nigerian project and their hope in the democratic recuperation of the nation. Without hope and faith, a people must perish. Human societies punished by persistent and serial failure require hope and optimism to sustain their viability. This is particularly so of democratically challenged nations like Nigeria. Hope and optimism are great spiritual and political resources for a people searching for democratic redemption. As it has been noted, this handbook could not have come at a better time as Nigeria prepares to grab the democratic bull by the horns again. In the past, the experience has left the nation bruised, bloodied, battered and occasionally impaled on the horns of cruel adversity. This is where the grim statistics get in the way of hope and optimism. The records are hardly edifying. Since the advent of civil governance in 1999, increasingly costly and astronomically prohibitive elections have produced increasingly cruel travesties leading to democratic regressions rather than the consolidation of the democratic process. Civil rule in Nigeria has produced electoral results which cannot stand scrutiny or the elementary tests of integrity. The paradox is that the more costly and prohibitive the elections, the less satisfactory have been the outcome. The widely disputed elections of 1999 cost a paltry 8.6 billion naira. Four years later in 2003, the figures had jumped to an outlandish 45 billion naira. The result was an electoral terror which was widely condemned by both the local and international communities. The figures for the 2007 elections have been wisely kept from public scrutiny, which speaks volumes for the transparency and accountability of the officiating government and the integrity of the entire process. It was the first time Direct Data Capturing machines were used in the annals of elections in Nigeria. But it is instructive that when the then boss of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Maurice Iwu, attempted to demonstrate the efficacy of the new gadget before the national assembly, the result was a monumental fiasco with the machine not being able to capture any data. Nevertheless, Iwu went ahead to order thousands more of the malfunctioning contraption. In the event, the 2007 elections have been adjudged the worst in the history of the nation and probably in the history of humanity. Ballot-snatching, illegal candidate substitution, whimsical disenfranchisement of large sections of the electorate, computer-assisted generation of fake results, vote-switching, criminal manipulation of results and larcenous fabrication of figures became the order of the day. The disputes arising from that inglorious charade are still ongoing four years after. It was the most fraudulent electoral chicanery ever foisted on a people. Four years after, many Nigerians are still shell-shocked by the brazen audacity of it all. Such was the scale and magnitude of this electoral heist that discerning and perceptive Nigerians began to whisper about the abolition of the Nigerian electorate. No wonder, the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military dictator turned reluctant democrat, famously described the election as a do or die affair. He did and democracy died a pitiless and merciless death in Nigeria. The brutalization of the average Nigerian psyche by this egregious effrontery has led to an abiding national trauma and widespread fear of the electoral process. The problem with military-assisted democracies is that you cannot give what you don’t have. By their temperament, socialization and acculturation the democratic template is alien to the military mentality with its hierarchical and rigidly segregated ethos. The military view the nation and society not as a democratic monad but as a garrison comprising of officers and men. In their patriarchal and patronizing notion, the idea of the average citizen as a sovereign entity in his own right is an open invitation to anarchy and chaos. Related News Free data for learning: Nigeria’s most urgent digital bet Nigeria making progress in malaria fight - WHO Nigeria's political heirs eyeing 2027 thrones What would have been the honorable exception to this odyssey of false democratic dawns was the fabled transition programme of General Ibrahim Babangida which ran from 1986 to 1993 and gulped a whopping 40 billion naira. In the run up to the presidential elections, Babangida allowed everything to be and the two government-created parties were evenly poised reflecting the regional, religious and political realities of the nation. The SDP controlled sixteen states while the NRC controlled fourteen. The presidential election itself was won by the SDP candidate, Basorun MKO Abiola, a billionaire business mogul and hitherto prized friend and loyalist of the military high command. But suddenly the military virus of undemocratic ambition and authoritarian disdain for the democratic aspirations of the ordinary citizen reared its head again. Prodded on and probably pushed by a coterie of ambitious subordinates Babangida summarily annulled the freest and fairest elections in the history of the nation thus plunging the entire nation into a democra