By
Nze David N. Ugwu
Elections are meant to be democracy’s moment of truth. They are the ritual through which citizens confer legitimacy, renew consent, and hold leaders to account. In Nigeria, elections have long carried this symbolic weight. Yet, since 2015, something more troubling has taken root beneath the formal rituals of ballots, parties, and courts. What has emerged is best described as electoral authoritarianism—a hybrid system that wears democratic clothing while practicing authoritarian control.
Electoral authoritarian regimes hold regular, multiparty elections, allow opposition parties to exist, and proclaim fidelity to constitutional rule. But they systematically manipulate the political environment so that incumbents almost always win. Power is not seized through tanks on the streets but secured through skewed rules, captured institutions, weaponized poverty, controlled narratives, and selective enforcement of the law. The outcome is a facade of democracy that confers legitimacy without accountability.
This framework captures, with uncomfortable precision, the trajectory of Nigeria’s electoral and governance experience from 2015 to date.
Democracy Without Uncertainty
At the heart of genuine democracy is uncertainty: the real possibility that incumbents can lose power. When elections no longer threaten those in power, democracy becomes hollow. Nigeria still conducts elections every four years. Ballot papers are printed. Campaigns are held. Opposition candidates crisscross the country. Yet the structure of competition has become increasingly uneven.
Observers of Nigeria’s recent elections—especially in 2019 and 2023—have noted a familiar pattern: the formal process exists, but the playing field is heavily tilted. State resources are openly deployed for partisan purposes. Security agencies are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as partisan actors. Electoral rules change late in the game, and accountability for infractions remains elusive.
The result is what political scientists call “democracy without uncertainty”—elections whose outcomes feel pre-determined not necessarily because every vote is rigged, but because the system is engineered to favor incumbents at every critical point.
The Power of Incumbency as a Political Weapon
In Nigeria, incumbency has always mattered. But since 2015, it has evolved into a near-total political weapon. Federal power increasingly shapes outcomes at state and local levels through control of security, finances, and regulatory agencies.
Election seasons routinely coincide with selective enforcement of anti-corruption laws. Opposition figures defect en masse—not always out of ideological conviction, but because survival within the political system often requires proximity to power. The ruling party becomes less a political organization and more a gravitational force: resist it and you are isolated; join it and you are absorbed.
The spate of high-profile defections ahead of major elections tells its own story. When politicians across ideological and regional lines converge on the ruling party, it is not always because the party has become more attractive, but because the cost of opposition has become prohibitively high.
Media Control, Propaganda, and the Manufacturing of Consent
Electoral authoritarianism thrives on narrative control. In Nigeria, the shrinking space for independent media and dissenting voices has been subtle but steady. While outright censorship is rare, economic pressure, regulatory threats, and selective advertising have created an environment where self-censorship flourishes.
State-owned media increasingly function as partisan megaphones. Critical voices are framed as unpatriotic, anti-government, or agents of destabilization. During election cycles, coverage often blurs the line between governance and campaigning, presenting incumbents as the sole custodians of national stability.
Social media, once a disruptive force, has become a contested terrain. Coordinated disinformation campaigns, online harassment, and the strategic flooding of the information space with half-truths and distractions have diluted public debate. The goal is not always to convince, but to confuse—to exhaust citizens into disengagement.
Institutions That Exist but Do Not Decide
Perhaps the most dangerous feature of Nigeria’s electoral authoritarian drift is the weakening of institutions that should act as neutral arbiters.
INEC, constitutionally independent, operates under intense political pressure. Innovations like BVAS and electronic transmission raised hopes of reform, only to be undermined by inconsistent implementation and post-election controversies. Each reversal deepens public cynicism.
The judiciary, once seen as a last refuge, has become the final battleground of elections. Nigeria is now a country where winners are increasingly determined not at polling units but in courtrooms. While judicial review is essential, the normalization of contradictory judgments and technical disqualifications has eroded confidence in the electoral process.
Security agencies, meanwhile, occupy an ambiguous space. Their presence at elections is justified as necessary for order, yet their selective deployment and conduct often raise questions about neutrality. In some regions, voters face intimidation not from thugs but from the very institutions meant to protect them.
Poverty as a Tool of Political Control
Electoral authoritarianism feeds on economic vulnerability. In Nigeria, mass poverty has become a political resource. Vote-buying is no longer an aberration; it is a system. When citizens are hungry, democracy becomes transactional.
The tragedy is not merely that votes are bought, but that poverty narrows political imagination. When survival is the priority, long-term governance failures become abstract. Electoral accountability collapses into short-term exchange: cash, food, fuel, or favors on election day.
These dynamic suits incumbents perfectly. Structural economic failures—unemployment, inflation, collapsing public services—are reframed as inevitable or externally imposed, while citizens are pacified with episodic handouts and slogans.
Legitimacy Without Trust
Electoral authoritarian regimes seek legitimacy without trust. They crave international recognition, constitutional formality, and the appearance of popular mandate, even as domestic confidence erodes.
Nigeria’s leaders still point to elections to validate authority and avoid sanctions. Yet turnout continues to decline. Young people, once politically energized, increasingly retreat into apathy or emigration. The “japa” phenomenon is not just economic flight; it is political despair.
When citizens no longer believe that elections can change their lives, legitimacy becomes brittle. Power may endure, but consent evaporates.
Nigeria at a Crossroads
Nigeria is not a full dictatorship. Opposition parties exist. Civil society still breathes. Courts still hear cases. That is precisely what makes electoral authoritarianism so insidious. It operates in the grey zone—enough freedom to claim democracy, enough control to prevent change.
History offers sobering lessons. Hybrid regimes rarely collapse dramatically; they decay slowly. Institutions hollow out. Cynicism hardens. Eventually, the gap between rulers and the ruled becomes unbridgeable.
Nigeria stands at a crossroads. The choice is not between perfection and chaos, but between democracy as substance and democracy as spectacle.
Reversing this trajectory will require more than electoral reforms. It demands a recommitment to institutional independence, media freedom, economic inclusion, and political competition rooted in ideas rather than intimidation. Above all, it requires restoring uncertainty to elections—the genuine possibility that power can change hands.
Without that, elections will continue to be held, winners will continue to be sworn in, and democracy will continue to exist—only in name.
And when democracy becomes only a name, authoritarianism no longer needs to announce itself. It simply governs.
Nze David N. Ugwu is the Managing Consultant of Knowledge Research Consult. He could be reached at [email protected] or +2348037269333.
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