Postscript by Waziri Adio
The campaigns for the 2027 presidential election officially kicked off on 19th August 2026, as stipulated in the timetable of the electoral management body. More than a full month or above 20% of the five-month campaign period has thus been exhausted. The parties, as mandated by INEC, concluded the selection of their presidential flagbearers in May, close to three months before the official commencement of the presidential campaigns. The intensity might have heightened and the convenient disguises might have fallen off, but there is still not much to separate one period from the other. We could as well still be in the pre-campaign period.
To be sure, two political parties have named their presidential campaign councils while some are still consulting. And there has been a marked increase in political statements, appearances and interviews, in consultations with and endorsements by some constituencies, and of the usual accusations and counter-accusations. But it is clear that the parties and their candidates are yet to engage the full-campaign gear. They are pacing themselves, and for understandable reasons. Presidential campaigns in a big and diverse country like Nigeria cost a lot of effort and money. Proper pacing is necessary for those who want to go the distance, sustain the momentum and stay competitive.
Nigeria’s official electioneering period—that window between when parties select their candidates and the voters make their choice at the polls—used to be three to four months. The official window was extended to six months in the 2019 electoral cycle, then to almost nine months for the 2023 elections with the 2022 Electoral Act. Nigerians live for elections. While a long electioneering period has some upsides, it is, on the balance, ill-advised in a country that is so fixated on elections. A long campaign period advantages the deep-pocket and diverts attention from actual governance. In any case, no party or candidate will run an intense campaign throughout this expanded window. We saw that in the 2023 cycle and we are seeing it again.
I still try to wrap my head around the elongation introduced by the 2022 electoral law. Policy changes should be informed not by mere fancy or examples from elsewhere but by clarity on the problem we are trying to solve and a deep understanding of the operating context. I still struggle to understand the problem we were trying to solve with the 2022 amendment and how the solution to that problem was to mandate primaries earlier and create a long gap between the selection of candidates, the commencement of campaigns and the conduct of elections. I am not sure a post-mortem of the 2023 election shows that the goal of that policy change was achieved. Did we just try to fix what was not broken?
Ensuring that all court cases are concluded before the winner is sworn in might be a better issue to address. If that is the case, I think it will be better that we hold elections early to allow for enough time for the resolution of disputes arising from the elections. We have done this before. The Special Election Tribunal and the Supreme Court ruled on the 1979 presidential election before Alhaji Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the president on 1st October 1979. This appears to me to be a more important problem to try to solve than having an over-extended electioneering period that puts the country in a suspended election mode for close to a year.
From all indications, the concentrated campaigns for 2027 will not start until three or two months to the January 16th presidential election. So, that extra time is an unnecessary distraction to the country. This provision needs to go at the next review of the electoral law. For practical reasons, political parties and their candidates are more likely to see the presidential race as a sprint than as a marathon. The time, energy and resources available to candidates (irrespective of their position, age and stamina) are not infinite. So, the parties, the candidates and their strategists are most likely to conserve their finite resources for a time that will grant them the most impact. And that is likely closer to the election.
Apart from the slow-start, there are other defining characteristics of the first month of the 2027 campaign season. Some of these are hints of things to come while some may change.
The first pattern is that this is a campaign that is so far thin on robust policy discussion. Yes, there have been announcements and promises. But promises are not exactly the same as policies or policy proposals. A major talking point of the past one month has been the promise to restore petrol subsidy by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Atiku and his handlers have said that he would subsidise petrol production and not consumption by providing subsidised crude oil to local refineries in exchange for lower prices of refined products at the pump.
The Atiku promise resonates with many Nigerians still reeling from high prices resulting from the shocks and the after-shocks of the removal of subsidy on petrol by President Bola Tinubu. Some of Atiku’s handlers have mentioned fancy things like ‘following the barrels’ but they and their principal have not convincingly addressed legitimate questions about how much his subsidy will cost, how it will be paid for, where he would find the barrels to be subsidised, what the trade-offs will be, and how this proposal will not end up returning the country to a precarious fiscal situation and further impoverish the poor. In the absence of such details which can be assessed against reality, it is difficult to bump the Atiku promise to the policy column. If there is a plan, it should be in the open at the time he first made the promise or shortly after. It is a lame rebuttal to insist that those criticizing or asking questions about the promise have not read the details that have not been provided.
The second pattern is related. The low-policy campaign period has been rich in promises, especially populist ones. Promising heaven to voters has always been part of electoral politics. But promises have a special appeal in moments of stress: voters are more disposed to buying them. Besides, we live in the age of populism now. With high cost of living as a major stress point in Nigeria today, most Nigerians are eager for relief and are less questioning. This puts the incumbent on the back-foot and hands the challengers an advantage. The challengers are better placed than the incumbent to promise to make things better. So, it has been raining promises, and one particular candidate has taken the lead in the promise league, inspiring other challengers to join the race. Promises sell, and populist promises even sell more. It is thus no surprise that the candidates have been busy hawking them like cooked groundnuts in harvest season.
Most of the promises are not backed by details of the steps, the costs and the opportunity costs. It is instructive that none of the leading candidates (including the incumbent) has unveiled their detailed blueprints or manifestoes in the first month of the 2027 presidential campaign. Beyond just spewing sometimes vacuous slogans and catchphrases at every stop, they (especially the challengers) have had enough time to articulate in detail what they stand for and what they plan to do differently if elected into the highest office in the land.
None of them is a first-timer in this race, but even first timers should not just wake up and join the presidential race without showing that they have thought deeply about what ails their society and they have well-thought-out and practical solutions to offer. Some of these leading candidates hide behind the need for consultations and incorporate diverse perspectives. These are convenient excuses. The political class of the Fourth Republic has not really prioritised manifestoes as what distinguish their parties from the pack, the basis for convincing voters to choose them over their competitors and the blueprint for governance if elected. Parties of the first and second republics stood as distinct entities in terms of their manifestoes and ideologies. Now, manifestoes are afterthoughts, developed merely to fulfil all righteousness. The current crop of politicians put higher store in promising what they think the people want to hear and most times, they just make up the promises on the go.
In the contest between policies and promises, it is a no-brainer that promises have the edge in the current political climate. However, the effectiveness of piling on promises as an electoral strategy is not guaranteed, especially as everyone else seems to be making them. It is one thing to say what the people want to hear, it is another thing for a critical mass of the voters to believe the candidate making the promise or think that the promise can be actualised. Nigerians have been treated over and over to unfulfilled promises. Making promises on the dime may thus not have the desired effect and may even be counter-productive if the candidate comes off as too desperate to do or say anything just to win. Also, the strength of other factors that decide electoral outcomes will determine how far afield the promises can go and how sticky they can be.
The third pattern that has been observed in this low-intensity phase of the 2027 campaign is that this electoral cycle will be heavy on attacks and negative campaigning. Demarketing the opponent is part and parcel of electoral politics the world over, especially in our politics where the emphasis has been more on personalities than on ideas. But there is already indication that the campaign will be more toxic this time than in 2023 or in previous electoral cycles of the current republic.
The parties, the candidates and their affiliates will dig into the past, institute court cases, twist words and images with AI, sponsor division and push false narratives about those in the other camps. They seem prepared to do all these not only to show that they or their candidates are a better fit for the office than the others but also to take away the moral high ground or at least to dilute opinion of those not yet committed to any side. From what we have seen so far, this is unlikely to be one-sided. Unlike the last time, all the leading parties seem prepared not just to instigate attacks but to return fire for fire. We still have about four months before 16th January 2027, enough time to see which of these patterns will be sustained, de-emphasized or amplified.