Campaign, no campaign
By Dakuku Peterside
Nigeria’s political parties can tell us who will coordinate their campaigns, mobilise their supporters and deliver their strongholds. They owe us comparable clarity on who will deliver safer communities, functioning hospitals, and an economy where work pays. As preparations for the 2027 elections gather momentum, the machinery for winning power is becoming visible. The case for exercising it deserves much closer examination.
Campaign, no campaign. That is the paradox of an election season in which political activity can outpace public understanding. There are appointments to announce, alliances to celebrate and opponents to attack. But after the speeches, a voter should be able to explain what separates the competing programmes—and what those differences would mean for everyday life.
Consider the Nigeria Democratic Congress. Reports on October 26 detailed its newly constituted National Campaign Council, chaired by Seriake Dickson, with Peter Obi as co-chairman and Ibrahim Abdulkarim as campaign director-general. The party promised a “people-centred and issue-based campaign”. Its appointments establish who will organise the electoral effort. The promised campaign must now establish how its candidates would govern. A persuasive coalition for winning an election is not automatically a coherent coalition for running a country.
The All Progressives Congress faces the same distinction. President Bola Tinubu inaugurated its Presidential Campaign Council on October 14. According to the State House account, the party’s national chairman called for a contest of ideas, records and policies, acknowledging that the campaign must show how reforms translate into practical improvements in daily life. That is a sound standard. Nigerians should hold the party to it.
Fairness requires us to resist an easy exaggeration: that the opposition has no policies and the governing party offers nothing beyond the word “reform”. The evidence does not support that sweeping dismissal. The more consequential question is whether published commitments have become clear, credible choices that citizens can compare.
The African Democratic Congress unveiled policy proposals in May, after adopting them at its April convention. They included a living wage, independent electoral management, preventive healthcare and a production-driven economy. In August, its Orange Book set out commitments, including abolishing opaque security votes and reducing the cost of governance. These are identifiable positions. They should be examined, not erased for the convenience of an argument.
Examination, however, means going beyond the announcement. What would a living wage mean for public finances, small employers and workers outside formal employment? How would a government replace opaque security spending with arrangements that preserve operational confidentiality while permitting scrutiny? Which expenditure would be cut, by how much and through what authority? A proposal becomes more convincing when its advocates confront its difficulties.
The Allied Peoples’ Movement also publishes positions on security, the rule of law, federalism and foreign policy. Its commitment to genuine federalism invites practical questions: which powers would move, which revenues would follow and which responsibilities would remain shared? Its promise of an efficient security system requires an account of personnel, funding and accountability. These principles provide a starting point. Voters need to see the governing arrangements they would produce.
The APC, meanwhile, has identified subsidy removal, exchange-rate unification, tax reforms and local government autonomy among the achievements it intends to campaign on. It also cites student loans, consumer credit and healthcare initiatives. The question is therefore not whether it has policies. It is whether the results justify renewed confidence—and whether its next programme responds adequately to what has fallen short.
For an incumbent, this is an obligation to account. What was promised? What changed? Who benefited, who bore the costs and what remains unresolved? A programme’s existence cannot establish its effectiveness. Disbursed money does not necessarily create opportunity; a commissioned project does not necessarily sustain a service. Government must show the connection between its actions and the improvements it claims.
“Reform” is especially inadequate as a final answer. It describes a process whose value depends on its consequences. A policy may address a genuine structural problem while being poorly sequenced or insufficiently protective of vulnerable people. Citizens are entitled to question those choices. A household struggling to afford essentials should not have to apologise for asking when adjustment will produce relief. Economic credibility requires both a defensible destination and a convincing account of the journey.
Opposition parties are not exempt from this discipline. Public frustration creates an opportunity to be heard; it does not establish governing competence. Challengers must explain what they would retain, reverse or redesign. Where they promise reversal, they must disclose its costs. Where they accept the broad direction of policy, they must identify the decisions they would change. Otherwise, voters may mistake a change of personnel for a change of programme.
Food provides a useful test. Every party can promise to end hunger. A credible programme must connect farm security, inputs, irrigation, storage, transport and market access. It must also confront the tension between immediate relief for consumers and incentives for producers. Would temporary imports form part of the response? Under what conditions would they end? How would the government prevent emergency measures from becoming permanent privileges for favoured businesses?
Employment promises deserve similarly persistent questioning. Which enterprises will employ the proposed millions of workers? What will those enterprises produce, and who will buy it? Training matters, but a certificate is not a vacancy. Credit matters, but a loan cannot rescue a business with unreliable power and insufficient demand. Candidates should explain how their interventions would support viable enterprises and sustained employment, rather than simply announce large beneficiary targets.
Healthcare exposes the difference between visible projects and functioning government. A hospital building can be photographed. Reliable treatment depends on staff, medicines, maintenance, management, and a way to pay for care. Who will meet those continuing obligations? Education raises the same issue. New classrooms matter, but voters should also hear how teachers will be supported, attendance improved, and learning assessed. Campaign speeches should include the recurring costs of public services alongside capital projects.
Security demands clarity about power and its limits. Candidates advocating decentralised policing should explain recruitment, financing, professional standards and safeguards against political abuse. Those promising better intelligence must address coordination and responsibility when warnings are ignored. Protecting citizens from criminals and from unlawful state coercion are both public obligations. A convincing security programme must take both seriously.
Then comes the question that disciplines every other promise: what will it cost? Parties should distinguish immediate commitments from those dependent on additional revenue. They should identify what they would postpone or discontinue. Savings from waste and corruption cannot serve as an unlimited funding source; they require specific measures and realistic estimates. Borrowing needs a repayment argument. Private investment needs conditions that make it plausible. A campaign that acknowledges limits offers voters a more honest basis for trust.
Personal integrity must also lead to institutional commitments. A leader’s reputation matters, but citizens need arrangements that can expose wrongdoing even when the offender is politically connected. What procurement information would be published? How would oversight bodies obtain records and enforce consequences? Would the proposed safeguards remain effective under a less scrupulous successor? That is the test of reform built to outlast its author.
The media should help make these distinctions unavoidable. Appointments, defections and endorsements are news, but they should not consume the election’s intellectual energy. Every major promise deserves follow-up on financing, authority, implementation and likely obstacles. An interviewer should not accept a second slogan as an answer to a question about the first. Citizens need scrutiny that is consistent across parties and persistent beyond a single broadcast.
A practical demand would be for every serious contender to publish five priority commitments, each with a starting baseline, estimated cost, funding source, responsible institution and deadline. These would give voters a manageable basis for comparison and a record against which to judge the winner. Governors and legislators should face scrutiny commensurate with their offices’ responsibilities.
Nigeria does not need less political enthusiasm. It needs more public understanding to accompany it. Campaign councils can organise the pursuit of office; candidates must explain how they will use that office.
At the end of this election, Nigerians should know more than who joined whom and which rally drew the largest crowd. They should know what their leaders have undertaken to deliver, what sacrifices those choices entail and how failure will be judged.
Until then, there may be campaigns everywhere—and still too little case for governing.
- Dakuku Peterside is a leadership and management turnaround expert.
