2027 elections: Power to the people – withhold your vote
By Lilian Onoh
On March 15, 2026, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, held elections and the beloved President Kim got a whopping 99.93% of the votes. But that was not the surprise. The question on many people’s lips was simple: who got the remaining 0.07% of the votes when there was only one candidate on the ballot?
Looking at the current Nigerian trajectory, it appears that this might be the question on everyone’s lips in January 2027 when the next sham elections are scheduled to take place and Nigerian citizens yet again give legitimacy to the charade of democracy and grant permission to marauders to continue walking on their heads.
It’s increasingly apparent that effectively, only one political party and only one candidate will escape INEC, the Judiciary, the orchestrated internal mayhem in all other political parties, the EFCC, the ICPC and the DSS to be on the ballot; and therefore, victory is already guaranteed.
That being the case, it seems that there is only one possible option to end the mass self-deception called democracy in Nigeria because it is impossible for anyone to describe what we practice in Nigeria as, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
If we practiced democracy, then, by definition, no state governor, senator, representative or any official elected by the people has the right to jettison the people’s mandate conferred through the people’s ideologically chosen political party, and jump into bed with a political party whose ideology and candidates the voters totally rejected. Doing so is the very antithesis of democracy and an affront to the voters – the people who put the officials in office.
Thus, all the governors and various elected officials that jumped from the political party platform on which they were elected to any other party after election have absolutely no legal status in office, no matter the rubbish our notorious judiciary spins out. They are all illegitimate office holders who duped the people into voting for them and then turned around and contemptuously spat in the eye of the voters. The servants employed by the master took over the master’s house and turned the master and his household into their servant! It is outrageous. It is a display of total duplicity and complete lack of integrity. No voter should trust one single word any of these party hopping deceivers say.
Can anyone imagine a British Labour Prime Minister jumping ship to the Conservative Party as soon as he is elected into office? Or a member of the Scottish National Party jumping into the Conservative Party because they were tired of being in opposition politics? The concept is unimaginable. So what gives these governors, senators, representatives, counsellors et cetera the gall to believe that their personal desire to chop at the national table gives them the right to treat the electorate with such total contempt?
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The reality of the party hopping bazaar in Nigeria is that the people’s choice, expressed at the polls through voting, is totally irrelevant. Elections mean nothing.
How dare any governor decide to take an entire state into a Party the electorate totally rejected because they are tired of opposition politics? My own home state, Enugu, gave the APC less than 5,000 votes in 2023; its lowest votes nationwide – exactly 4,772 votes. It was even less than Anambra, where Peter Obi comes from. The rejection of APC in Enugu is deep seated. Buhari ensured it.
So how can the Governor say that a State that has been PDP since 1999, with citizens who willingly endured eight years of Buhari, withstood his pernicious retributions and still chose to reject his APC in 2023, tell the citizens – the people who elected him – that he is tired of opposition politics; and drag not only himself but all the legislators and local government chairmen, most of whom were elected under the Labour Party platform in 2023, into the APC? Who gave him the right?
If the Palm Wine Drinkers Political Party wins the election next year, will the governor drag Enugu into that Party? What if Boko Haram wins the majority of the votes, which, going by how much of Nigeria is under the control of terrorists, is not implausible, will he then join Boko Haram?
Will all the governors that switched parties do the same? Did any of them conduct a referendum of Party members and the populace to get their approval before they jumped ship? When did the elected servants of the people – elected to represent the people – get the power to stand on the people’s head and spit in their eye?
Since they have shown everyone their complete lack of integrity and respect for the voters and effectively declared that the people’s decision no longer matters, then it is time for the people to rise up and show them that actually, they, the people, are the masters not their carpet.
So in 2027, my solution is simple – sit at home. Boycott the elections. Refuse to give legitimacy to the sham. There is no need to vote for the APC, ADC, PDP or any party in Nigeria in 2027.
Nigeria does not have a single real opposition party.
The so-called ADC is nothing more than a junkyard of all the politicians who are responsible for decimating the country since 1999. They are deceivers, riding on the disaffection of Nigerians who are suffering under the misery they helped to create. They have no integrity and the only campaign they have is to criticize the current government for doing exactly what they did when they were in office. Not one of them deserves another chance. The absence of ideology and fidelity to the words they uttered in the past renders all of them untrustworthy and nothing they say should be believed.
The APC is also a junkyard of politicians who destroyed Nigeria whilst they were in other parties before jumping into a renamed club to deceive and decimate. Buhari is exhibit one – from the civil war to his 1983 coup, he was a failure, yet in 2015, out of all the excellent citizens in Nigeria, he was the junkyard APC’s best candidate.
He promised to seek only one term in 2015 and immediately changed his word as soon as he became a quasi-dictator in 2015. His re-election in 2019 was a lie built on the illusion that an election took place and votes were cast for him.
If Nigerians had sat at home and refused to give legitimacy to the charade, he would not have had the extra four years to fill our country with his terrorist brethren or had the mouth to tell us that we should give up our ancestral land to his imported terrorist cousins and their cows or die. He could only do so because the populace actually went to the polls and legitimised his murderous mindset.
So let us finally learn and refuse to help our destruction.
The current President has already disqualified himself, thanks to NEPA. Nigeria does not have power. In 2023, before being elected, he said that if he does not sort out the power situation during his first term, nobody should give him a second term. If he contests, despite NEPA still showing Nigerians renewed shege, then no promise he makes should be believed.
If the Vice-President contests instead, nobody should vote for him either because the Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu are still with terrorists years after being abducted. His word to keep them safe in 2014 is still unfulfilled after he over-rode President Jonathan and forced them to return to school. He should bring back our girls first before embarking on any campaign.
Nigerians stay at home. Refuse to vote. Refuse to participate in the charade. Withdraw the vote and take back your power.
A boycott will achieve many wonderful things.
It will de-legitimise any eventual “winner.” The international community will not recognise any winner under those circumstances.
Before the election, Nigerians will no longer need to waste time debating if in fact Nigeria is a one party state. It is. Whether it is APC, ADC, PDP or the Vulture Eating Party, they are the same politicians circulating themselves in an incestuous dance that keeps Nigerians deceived. APC, PDP or ADC, it is the same junkyard.
If only the APC remains on the ballot, what possible campaign promises can they give Nigerians? The promises they made in 2023 stand as witness against them. Ditto for the PDP and ADC politicians. Let the failed promises they’ve made since 1999 when they were in the ruling party judge them.
The judiciary, which has become the global poster-child of nonsense, will no longer be enriched by the politicians paying for the multiple contrary judgments they sell weekly as they mutilate the opposition and make a mockery of the Law.
INEC will not need the budgeted billions and trillions that is routinely laundered through elections and maybe there will be money to put panadol and iodine in hospitals instead of siphoning our money through this sham.
The amount spent on security during elections will return to CBN because there will be nothing to fight over. There won’t even be any need to restrict movement.
Lives will be saved because there will be no need for thugs that steal ballot boxes and attack opposition supporters. No electoral commissioner will be burnt in his house with his wife and children.
Billions will be saved. There will be no need to bribe electoral commissioners, ballot collators, etc. We won’t even need to invite international observers and waste money transporting and guarding them because the elections will be totally free, fair and useless – guaranteed.
NEPA will be irrelevant because electronic transmission will not matter. Even MTN and Glo will be irrelevant for data transmission. The APC will have 99.99999% of all votes cast. 0.000001% will be disqualified votes. Nobody will tell anybody to go to court. The judges will become poorer. Lawyers will focus on real work. The courts will be free from electoral drama. Newspapers will focus on real stories.
Once that happens, it will trigger the crises that will force a meaningful dialogue about the future of Nigeria.
Without a legitimate government, it will be time to decide if we want to remain one country and under what conditions. Will it be regionalism or will we finally have real federalism? Will we have full resource control or will someone in Abuja keep quaffing our God-given resources? Will we have a uniform education standard or will some states keep using automatic promotion to put illiterates in office? Will certain states be allowed a religious Hisbah police whilst the rest of the country cannot even have village age grade security teams? Will the army remove Jihad as its motto and will our currency remove Arabic script from our notes?
We can discuss these things but only if the citizens finally realise the power of not participating in the charade immediately. No party rallies, no electioneering.
If you must vote, throw out any party hopping official that is up for re-election, be they governor, senator, representative, local government chairman or counsellor. Throw them out. They have no integrity.
It is time to show who is the real oga and teach these charlatans that government of the people by the people and for the people means that we, the people, are in charge.
Your servants that you employed when you voted for them and gave them jobs to administer your estate cannot become your master in your own house. Sack them all.
An addendum to the DSS, this is not a call for disorder – it is a call to citizens to exercise their right to decide, in line with the principles of democracy.
- Lilian Onoh was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Namibia and former Chargé d’Affaires to Jamaica.
