The strange anatomy of Nigerian democracy: 26 years of fragile balance and the legacy of neo-patrimonial rule

May 29 marked the second year of the Tinubu/Shettima presidency. It also marked the 26th year of uninterrupted democracy for the first time in the history of Nigeria. This means that there has been an entire generation of Nigerians who have been born and raised to adulthood without taking one breath under military rule. Yet […]

May 29 marked the second year of the Tinubu/Shettima presidency. It also marked the 26th year of uninterrupted democracy for the first time in the history of Nigeria. This means that there has been an entire generation of Nigerians who have been born and raised to adulthood without taking one breath under military rule. Yet this generation, and the ones before them, are still struggling to make sense of this democracy and what it means for Nigerians.

From inception, Nigeria’s political system has been like the platypus, a creature so strange that when British naturalist George Shaw was first presented with a specimen in 1790, he believed it was a biological hoax. The animal looked like a Frankenstein monster cobbled together from the parts of various animals that should not fit together.

For one, the platypus is a bush rat-like mammal. Where it should have a mouth, it has a soft duck-like beak that is packed with electroreceptors to detect the electric field produced by its underwater prey. Its webbed feet and flattened beaver-like tail help it swim. Unlike other mammals that give live births, this one lays eggs. It has no true stomach or nipples but oozes milk from its armpits for its young ones.

But that is not all; the platypus is a venomous creature. It has no teeth, but the males can inject venom through spurs on their hind legs. The platypus looks like the abominable product of a rat/beaver hybrid crossbreeding with a duck. As far as animal oddities go, the platypus takes the cake.

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To make sense of Nigerian democracy, one has to make sense of the Nigerian political system, which is not unlike the platypus. They are both unwieldy amalgams of bits that are at variance with each other and, in a normal, rational world, should not coexist in the same entity.

The Nigerian political system, as we have seen over the last 26 years, is a delicate balancing act of varying body parts in the form of ethnic, regional, religious, social, and ideological contraptions that should not fit together. Yet this delicate balance has somehow prevented the total dominance of one group over another, even during military rule. In democracy, it is a system that has a recruitment process that is hardly democratic, where outgoing incumbents, not the people, choose who succeeds them.

These peculiarities have meant that fundamental political theories that apply successfully elsewhere have appeared as anomalies when applied to Nigeria. These anomalies have manifested in the various iterations of our political system, which remains unlike any other in the world.

At first, we were a parliamentary democracy that struggled to balance all these various wiggling parts. Then we became an authoritarian state when the military inserted itself into the political sphere. But our military juntas were different from others because the system was so complex that it could not sustain a lifetime dictator. Even the fiercest of these juntas failed to fully suppress the press and the exuberance of Nigerians in free speech and action. This is at variance with dictatorships elsewhere on the continent, for instance, Idi Amin’s reign of terror in Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko’s iron-fist rule in Zaire, or even Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule in Egypt.

As a post-authoritarian democracy from 1999, Nigeria did not quite fit the parameters of post-authoritarian democracies across the world. Post-authoritarian democracies are born out of the sudden collapse of authoritarian regimes. Most of these democracies lean heavily on inherited systems of oppression to rule and feature elite autocracy, with former key members of the autocracy retaining power.

Nigeria had former dictator IBB playing godfather to a system that produced Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, former dictators leading the government. In these systems, new regimes struggle with accountability and transitional justice. They must decide whether to prosecute or compromise with former regime elites. This decision determines the stability and transition of the new regimes.

Post-autocratic democracies are transitional stages in the evolution of a nation’s political system, and countries like Portugal and Spain have gone through similar phases to emerge as stable democracies.

In the 26th year of our democracy, Nigeria is in the process of fully transitioning away from post-autocratic democracy into neo-patrimonial rule. This hybrid regime type combines elements of traditional patrimonial rule (which includes personal loyalty and patronage) with modern legal-rational institutions.

Some of the key features of this system are patron-client networks where political leaders use state resources to secure loyalty from their followers. This often entails prioritising personal or group interests over the public good. Another major feature of this system is the weak separation of the public and the private. The boundaries between public office and private benefits are blurred, and officeholders treat state resources as personal assets. Governors use public funds to procure public transport vehicles and brand them with their names and faces as if they were from the magnanimity of their private pockets. Even state-owned football clubs end up being kitted with the governor’s brand name.

While there are formal systems in place, like regular elections, political parties, and legal systems, real power is exercised through informal relationships. Who becomes governor or president is not determined by the formal institutions (political parties) but by the relationship the incumbent has with certain people. Senate President Godswill Akpabio’s recent statement, in which he appealed to state governors to choose their successors carefully, only acknowledges what is already known. Neo-patrimonial rule compromises institutions and centres the individual, who hands out patronage in exchange for loyalty and allegiance. On election day, the electorate is only expected to ratify decisions that have already been made on their behalf.

The direct consequence of this system is that political competition becomes oligarchic competition, where multiple networks or oligarchic groups compete for control of state resources, often through electoral mechanisms, but with little regard for genuine representation or public accountability. The product is personal or group enrichment and widespread rent-seeking and corruption.

This is where Nigeria is today after 26 years of uninterrupted democracy, deeply entrenched in neo-patrimonial rule. Ahead of the 2027 elections, we are seeing the impending collapse of multi-party democracy, not through the repression of opposition political parties, but through numerous defections of members of opposition parties to the ruling party to seek patronage.

Defections, as insidious as they are, have always been a hallmark of Nigerian politics. It is not uncommon for governors or senators, elected on the platform of one party and holding office on behalf of that party, to defect to a rival party and still retain their mandate.

The law, specifically Section 68(1)(g) of the Nigerian Constitution as amended, allows for cross carpeting only in the event of a merger of political parties or substantial fracture within the party at the national level that impedes the functionality of that party. Reasons for defection are completely devoid of the interest of the electorate but are meant to serve the patronage system and align the defectors with the group controlling state resources, or to guarantee immunity from prosecution for corruption and abuse of office. Yet the courts’ interpretations of these cases have not provided any significant clarity.

Ahead of 2027, while defections and alliances are forming, the reality of these machinations is that the entire political system converges around the culture of patronage. This culture transcends politics and is ingrained in the Nigerian psyche. It manifests in the brown envelope journalism that has become rampant in the country and in the day-to-day interactions of individuals. The electorate often cast their votes based on patronage they have received in the form of food and cash handouts.

This extends to social interactions as well. For instance, only last week, when singer Speed Darlington received flak for confessing to raping a minor in a viral video, he reacted by dismissing the confession he voluntarily recorded and posted as “content” and senselessly offered N3, 000 as a “giveaway” to his fans.

The current efforts by those in opposition determined not to defect to the ruling APC to form an alliance that could challenge for the presidency in 2027, if successful, is only another attempt to form another oligarchic group to vie for power, not because of any political ideology that any of these groups converge on, but due to their interest in accessing state resources.

This is the sad reality of Nigerian democracy 26 years after. It is what will determine the outcome of the elections in 2027, as it has in previous elections. Somehow, this platypus of democracies trudges on.