The cosmetic nature of Nigeria’s political landscape

There is something deeply unsettling about the current state of Nigerian politics, a kind of sameness that is hard to ignore. Strip away the party colours, the campaign slogans, and the personalities, and what you often find is this: our politics is largely cosmetic. Rivalries are driven more by the pursuit of power than by […]

There is something deeply unsettling about the current state of Nigerian politics, a kind of sameness that is hard to ignore.

Strip away the party colours, the campaign slogans, and the personalities, and what you often find is this: our politics is largely cosmetic. Rivalries are driven more by the pursuit of power than by any meaningful ideological difference.

 That is the sad reality.

 If you take a closer look at candidates from the last election cycle, and even those positioning themselves for the next, you will notice a striking pattern. Across the board, there is broad agreement on key policy directions. A remarkable, almost eerie convergence of policy positions. Every serious candidate supported the removal of the fuel subsidy. Every serious candidate believed in floating the naira. Every serious candidate was comfortable with foreign borrowing, whether from the IMF, the World Bank, or both. Not one offered a fundamentally different vision of the Nigerian economy or society. At best, the most honest distinction between them, one can probably argue, lies not in what should be done, but in how it should be done, and perhaps in the perceived competence or political will to execute.

 This convergence is not accidental. It is structural. Nigerian political parties are not platforms for ideas. They are vehicles for accessing state resources. Campaign financing is extraordinarily expensive, which means candidates are beholden to the same pool of wealthy interests before they ever face the electorate. There is no incentive to develop a coherent ideology when the real competition happens in the arena of patronage, not policy. Parties are formed, dissolved, and reformed around individuals, not principles. The result is a political market where the product on offer is always the same, regardless of the label on the packaging. 

This is not a defence of the current government. The administration in power today bears direct responsibility for the economic misery of this moment. The cost of living is punishing. The naira has hemorrhaged value. Poverty has deepened. These are not abstractions. They are the lived conditions of millions of Nigerians. Accountability matters, and the government must answer for its choices.

But the more uncomfortable question is this: would it have been meaningfully different under anyone else?

The candidates now positioning themselves for the next electoral cycle are largely campaigning on the same issues that produced the current crisis. The vocabulary has changed slightly. The grievances are louder. But the ideological scaffolding is the same. 

 And we, the electorate, must take our share of the blame.

When you ask the average Nigerian why they vote, the answers are revealing. The larger voting bloc, the one that decides elections, votes on sentiment. Tribe. Religion. A sense of belonging. Personal gain, direct or imagined. These are not trivial motivations in a country with Nigeria’s history of marginalisation and ethnic tension. But they are insufficient foundations for a functioning democracy.

The next tier of voters, somewhat more tolerable in their reasoning, vote because it is a constitutional duty. This is well and good. Participation matters. But civic obligation alone does not produce accountability. Showing up to vote without a clear sense of what you are voting for is the political equivalent of signing a blank cheque.

 Democracy cannot thrive in a politically illiterate society. And political literacy is not simply knowing the names of candidates or the dates of elections. It is knowing what you believe the role of government should be. It is asking: do I want a large government with robust social programmes and subsidies? Or do I want an administration focused on employment, industrialisation, and private sector growth? Do I prioritise agricultural reform? Manufacturing capacity? Education funding? Security architecture? These are not abstract policy questions. They are the questions that determine the shape of everyday life.

Until Nigerians begin to vote on issues, to identify what they believe in, amplify it, and hold candidates accountable to it, the political class has no incentive to offer anything different. Why develop a coherent ideology when sentiment wins elections? Why propose structural reform when tribal solidarity is more efficient?

The cosmetics of Nigerian politics are convincing enough. New faces, new party acronyms, new slogans. But underneath it all, the architecture is unchanged. And it will remain unchanged for as long as we allow the conversation to be about personalities rather than principles.

 We have to return our politics to the arena of ideas. Not because it is idealistic, but because the alternative, which is exactly what we have now, is not working.

 

Suleiman resides in Abuja