In Mexico, an air conditioner is called a politician, “because it makes a lot of noise but doesn’t work very well”.
After three decades of military interventions and dominance, a convergence of anti-military forces, pro-democracy civil society organizations, determined Nigerian citizens and international pressure groups, would ensure that the dream of a democratic Nigeria was actualized to great hope and expectations of newfound freedoms and all the celebrated gains of self-rule. This achievement was probably the most consequential democratic experiment of the global south.
A period of great global power peace gave rise to the growth of globalism and multilateralism, which fostered cooperation and strengthened the Anglo-American consensus of global governance; Nigeria would be a beneficiary of that new world order.
Over two decades, the world has witnessed a stealth period of democratic recession, which to many was almost imperceptible. Democratic principles were silently being re-modified to the point that a critical re-examination is required, as the underpinnings of our views on democratic institutions, rules and ethos are being redefined in a most disruptive way. The thought-provoking speech by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, was the big bang that seems to have shaken us all out of our reverie and caused us to seriously interrogate what we knew democracy to be, and to honestly assess our preparedness for the emerging new world order.
I am truly honoured to be part of the assemblage of eminent individuals invited to interrogate the health of our democratic experiment. I shall speak to the growing gaps between politics and governance today, which has become the defining challenge of Nigeria’s fourth republic. Remaining optimistic, I shall try to challenge the doomsday quote by John Quincy Adams, the 2nd President of the United States of America, which says, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America, says and I quote, ‘’Democracy is never a final achievement, it’s a call to an untiring effort’’.
We are confronted with questionable electoral integrity, the proliferation of illiberal democracies and constitutional overreach. In the African sub-region, the increasing incidence and popularity of military coups as well as the security, stability and prosperity of non-democratic countries such as China, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates increase our quandary. The superior qualities of democracy are under scrutiny. Will our untiring efforts, according to JFK, challenge the death prophecy according to John Adams?
Statistics from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, International IDEA, state that globally, 58% of adults are dissatisfied with democracy. In Nigeria, a significant and growing number (over 70%) are dissatisfied with how democracy actually functions in the country, seeing it as flawed or poorly implemented, and many believe elections don’t reflect their views or remove bad leaders.
Yes, Nigerians vote, but accountability remains weak, institutions are not rules-based, public confidence in leadership is declining, and voter turnout has steadily dropped, reflecting growing political disillusionment. Voter turnout in Nigeria’s Presidential elections have declined sharply over recent years, from 52% in 1999, to 46% in 2015, and then 35% in 2019, to a dismal 26.7% in 2023, reflecting continued disengagement from the electoral process.
Access to quality education, healthcare, housing and social protection remains uneven. Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children globally, estimated at over 18 million. Health indicators lag behind peer countries. Social policies often react to crises rather than preventing them. Nigeria’s population is young, energetic and ambitious, yet grossly underutilized. When human potential is wasted, democratic hope weakens, brain drain and limited opportunities threaten long-term productivity. However, for the 4th Republic, it is not all gloom and doom; there are some high points.
In August 2001, the GSM technology was formally introduced to Nigeria. ICT impacted our socio-political and economic existence. As of 2024, there were 222 million telephone subscribers, the beginning of the democratization of information and new avenues for wealth creation. Our democracy became more accountable by expanding citizens’ opportunities to freedom of interrogation, expression and association. Mobilization and organization for citizens’ engagement with oppressive government policies became more effective and impactful. I can’t think of a better example than the #EndSARS Protests in 2020.
As we see a decline in activities of civil society organisations, citizen advocacy is on the rise, and exposing human rights abuses has never been easier. People like Martins Otse, also known as Very Darkman and Precious Oruche known as Mama Pee, lead the charge in that area. Economically, digital content creators have brought immense value to the Nigerian economy, creating millions of jobs, exporting the nation’s culture globally, and providing new avenues for socioeconomic expression. ICT is undoubtedly one of the most disruptive and impactful achievements of the 4th Republic.
The creative industry in Nigeria’s 4th Republic, which encompasses music, films, art, fashion and food, has grown from a largely informal sector to the country’s second largest employer of labour after agriculture. Nigerian music artists have become international household names. Nigerian fashion has appeared on major international runways. Publishing authors such as Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie are globally acclaimed. So also are the culinary arts, visual arts and the growing video game sector. In 2023 alone, motion pictures, sound recording, and music production contributed approximately US$1.73 billion to the Nigerian economy
An unbroken chain of transfer of democratic power through 8 cycles of elections from one ruling political party, the PDP, to a previously opposition coalition party APC, without interruptions by coups or extra-judicial changes, should be cheery news. It should be an indication that our democracy is alive and well. But is it? Unfortunately, democracy is not only the ballot box; democracy is not validated by longevity alone, it is validated by outcomes.
Our democratic experiment raises its own credibility questions. The independence of the umpire INEC, the shrinking of the political space, the heightened intolerance of any viable opposition and the decline of multi-party political systems. There are allegations that Nigeria dances dangerously on the brink of becoming a one-party state. The only challenge to that rests on the belief that our diversity will prove such attempted monolithic control near impossible. We wait and see.
What is Not Working
The governability of our democracy is exposing huge gaps. To understand our strengths and failures, we must first query what an election is. What is governance? And why confusing the two has become costly. An election is about winning political power; it is a means to an end, while governance is about using political power responsibly and effectively. Governance is long-term planning, it is institutional defence and growth, it is policy-formation and implementation; it is service delivery, it is accountability.
Elections are episodic, governance is continuous. Elections ask who should lead, governance answers how society should be run. Elections create authority, and governance creates outcomes. The paradox of the Fourth Republic is that while politics is vibrant, democracy is fragile. Democracy simply appears unable to solve the country’s major problems of rising widespread insecurity and the eradication of multi-dimensional poverty, which seems to have overwhelmed the leadership of the country. I will highlight;
Amid the declining public finance accountability and profligacy among the political class, the World Bank reported in 2025, that over 75% of Nigerians lived below the United Nations (UN) poverty threshold of US$2 per day; which translates to over 133 million people who are said to be living in multi-dimensional poverty, a steep rise from 87 million in 2018, with a new Price Water Cooper report projecting 141 million people by the end of 2026.
More disturbing statistics from the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), confirmed by the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, states that only 2% of the 70 million bank account holders in the country have more than 500,000 Naira (US$350) or above in their accounts. Democracy has clearly not translated to economic security.
The quest for nation-building and cohesion has proved to be a major challenge, with our fault lines magnified by our socioeconomic disparities. This polarization with its ethnic and religious leanings obviously predate the 4th Republic, but has been exacerbated over time by vicious politics and entrenched inequalities, partisan traditional media, distrust in institutions and technological tools like social media and Artificial intelligence, spewing hate speech and violence, computational propaganda, deep fakes and imagery.
Nigerians today do not speak only about the traditionally perceived inequity between the North and South of Nigeria. As we inch closer towards the election cycle, the recurrent North-South conversations are again beginning to rear their heads, this time with a different, more divisive twist. For the first time, more people are beginning to engage in the Micro-equity and Southern contiguity conversations, probably as a result of the perception of a skewed distribution of resources arising from widely held and touted beliefs that the Southwest benefits unfairly at the expense of the other composite parts of the southern region, such as the South-East and the South-South.
Our democracy has obviously not learned to walk the narrow corridor of creating a State strong enough to ensure stability amid democratically guaranteed institutional freedoms such as the freedom of expression and freedom of association. Repression has become increasingly fashionable, illiberal populism seems to be on the rise, and the rule of law seems to be in retreat.
Gender Inclusion
No honest assessment can ignore gender disparities in political and leadership representation: There is a Chinese saying that ‘’you can’t hold up the sky with one hand.’’
Nigeria has a historically low representation of women in political office, generally under 6%, and was ranked 139th out of 156 countries in global gender equality metrics. With 14 females out of 360 members in the House of Representatives and only four out of 109 Senators, Nigeria falls significantly below the African regional average of 23.4% and the global average of 26.1% for women in parliament. Fifteen out of the country’s 36 States operate their legislature with zero female representation.
When half the population is underrepresented in decision-making, development and governance, outcomes inevitably suffer. This is not merely a gender issue; it is a governance failure. Evidence consistently shows that societies that include women in leadership experience:
– Better social outcomes
– Stronger community trust, and
– A more sustainable development
Any democracy that marginalises women weakens itself. The period between 1999 and 2003 surpassed the prescribed 35% in appointive positions and witnessed women holding very strategic cabinet positions and delivering excellently on their mandate. The evidence is not abstract. Nigeria itself provides a powerful counterfactual model.
When Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed the Coordinating Minister of Finance, Nigeria was burdened by over US$30 billion in external debt, with debt servicing consuming a crippling share of the national revenue and crowding out spending on development. Through disciplined fiscal management, institutional reform, and one of the most complex sovereign negotiations in modern history, her leadership culminated in a landmark US$18 billion debt relief deal with the Paris Club in 2005. That single outcome:
– Reduced Nigeria’s debt stock by more than 60 per cent
– Freed billions of dollars annually for social and infrastructure spending, and
– Restored international credibility to Nigeria’s public finance system
This was not a symbolic inclusion. It was a measurable national gain. The lesson is clear: when Nigeria entrusted a woman with real authority over a critical institution, the result was not optics, it was outcomes. It was not propaganda; it was felt in all our homes.
Legislative interventions such as the Special Seat Bill which has been presented consistently in the last three National Assemblies (8th, 9th, and 10th), have failed to get the desired legislative votes to achieve the Affirmative Action fillip required to close the embarrassing gender gaps as yet. The National Assembly will do well to seize this opportunity to etch its name in the annals of Nigeria’s history by passing the Special Seats Bill to allow for more female participation in governance, which the country desperately needs.
Youth Inclusion
Africa has been referred to as “a young continent with old leadership” and this is no less true for Nigeria. Over 70% of the Nigerian population is below the age of 40, some 154 million young men and women out of our approximately 220 million population. If all the youth in Nigeria were to be resident in one country, that country would be the 10th most populous country in the world. The youth suffer much the same fate as women. The Nigerian State will do well to recognize the benefits of integrating this critical, mobile, innovative human force of development.
Institutions
The Nigerian Judiciary has a 21% approval rating, and a new report by the Africa Polling Institute (API) has found that 79% of Nigerians have little to no trust in the country’s judiciary, citing concerns such as political influence, inefficiency, delay of the judicial process and erosion of integrity. Ironically, this contrasts sharply with known cases of bold judges who stood against authoritarian actions during the military era.
The late Justice Niki Tobi (JSC) put it succinctly: “While politics as a profession is fully and totally based on partiality, most of the time, judgeship as a profession is fully and totally based on impartiality, the opposite of partiality. Their waters must never meet in the same way Rivers Niger and Benue meet at the confluence near Lokoja. If they meet, the victim will be democracy most of the time, and that will be bad for sovereign Nigeria. We need democracy, not despotism, oligarchy and totalitarianism. Judges should, on no account, dance to the music played by politicians because that will destroy their role as independent umpires in the judicial process”.
This, in my opinion, should be the new template for the judiciary in Nigeria’s fledgling democracy.
The Legislature
The problems that confront the legislature are tetra-headed. It battles weak legislative support systems and a high attrition rate.
The National Assembly records an average of 75% in legislator-turnover since the Fourth Republic. Consequently, there is no institutional memory. In 26 years, the Legislature as an institution has struggled to find its true relevance and independence in the tripartite spectre of democratic governance.
The bastion of our democracy, it is the only institution in government that echoes the voice of the people. The duty of the legislature is to mitigate the usurpation of authority and accumulation of power in one person. When it performs optimally, it checks the unilateral actions and balances the powers of the executive.
Between 2005 and 2006, an independent legislature voted against a constitutional amendment that sought to extend the tenure of an administration beyond the prescribed term limits.
In 2010, the Legislature invoked the controversial “Doctrine of Necessity” to proffer a political solution at a turbulent time in our nation’s history.
In the quest to entrench legislative independence, the National Assembly in a well-publicised act of defiance, resisted executive interference in the choice of her leadership and experienced probably the most vibrant Assembly to date. That was a period of mutual respect, greater accountability, better representation and more robust citizen participation. Those were the 7th & 8th Assemblies.
Sadly, the National Assembly seems to have yielded that hard-fought independence. There exists overarching executive dominance, probably as a result of interference in the emergence of a new leadership of the 10th Assembly, which has earned the legislature the unkind moniker of a “Rubber Stamp Assembly” by the public.
The integrity of the National Assembly, and its actions, have never been called more into question than recently when one of the core functions of the legislature, law-making, came under scrutiny amid allegations of distortions, inclusions and forgeries. Someone, a group or institutions, apparently acted ultra vires (post-assent), regarding a critical piece of legislation – The Nigerian Tax law. For the first time in our history, this calls into question the integrity of all the laws that have been passed recently.
With regards to oversight, another core role of the National Assembly, there is also the question about the funding of capital budgets; the three-year cumulative budget deficit exceeding 50 trillion Naira; the 2026 fiscal deficit of 23.85 trillion Naira, and debt service obligations of 15.2 trillion Naira, which exceeds the combined budget allocation for defence and security. This is at a time when our country is almost crippled by insecurity.
Also, there is public concern that the Mid-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Appropriation Act are blind to details of the much-touted Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway despite its staggering cost. Furthermore, Nigerians are understandably worried about the project’s selection process and the alleged abuse of the confirmation powers for the Executive positions. The National Assembly seems to have abandoned all pretence of neutrality, leading to questions about performance and competence.
Conclusion
Without doubt, our country is exhibiting the warning signs of democratic fatigue. Voter apathy, youth disengagement, separatist tensions, and rising cynicism are warning signs. With more liberal voices silenced, we are confronted with the rise of populism and sycophantic allegiance to men, while the State is ignored. A sad reality is highlighted by the fact that those who wish to push the elastic limits of our democracy are weaponizing and deploying the very institutions that should uphold and sustain it. The arduous task to prove that democracy can still deliver better than other governance systems depends on the critical shift from democracy for power acquisition at the expense of service and governance.
We the people must be reminded that it is not only permissible to hold government to account, but it is also our duty. We must stop looking away from the fact that the titanic of State has hit an iceberg; we must stop dancing to the loud music of elections and look for the lifeboats of governance.
We all, the tripod – those holding public offices; the citizens and the gatekeepers, including the media, civil society and the judiciary, with the political parties acting as filters, must recommit to personal, institutional and systemic reforms. We must unlearn the retrogressive habits and acquire new rules of governance that will help us survive and dominate the revolutionary change that is upon us. In the words of Mark Carney: ‘’if we are not at the table, we are on the menu’’.
We must breach the trust-deficit between the government and the governed. We must demand transparency from public office holders and resist the overreach of the executive. We must defend the integrity of strong State institutions, and finally, we must insist on an impartial justice system.
A unified vision in our collective quest for security, good governance, prosperity, inclusiveness and accountability must be the absolute barest minimum. To build a resilient and prosperous nation in today’s world, we must embrace and effectively manage our diversity
Rep. Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje, an advocate for inclusivity, represented the Bende Federal Constituency of Abia State thrice in the Nigerian House of Representatives (2007, 2011 & 2015), chairing the House Committee on Foreign Relations twice. She delivered this paper at a recent High-level “Daily Trust Dialogue” in Abuja.
