Across Nigeria today, the evidence of state failure is no longer hidden behind press releases or military jargon. In the North-West, bandits have turned communities into tax-paying fiefdoms.
In the North-East, insurgents are rebuilding their caliphate, village by village. In the Middle Belt, communal militias and herder-farmer clashes have turned farmlands into graveyards, with entire districts abandoned after cycles of reprisal. In the South-East, gunmen strike with impunity, and in the South-South, oil theft funds an armed rebellion that no one dares to confront. In the South-West, criminal gangs and herdsmen have turned highways into hostage arenas, while cults and land grabbers operate as shadow governors in sprawling suburbs. Over 1,500 citizens killed across regions in the first quarter of 2024 alone. Thousands more kidnapped. Whole local governments ceded to non-state actors. Let us call this what it is: a slow, willful national suicide.
Despite the siege that has been unleashed against Nigerians over time, it is shocking to see that the only thing occupying the minds of our political class is the 2027 general election.
It is a distraction so lethal, so brazen, that one wonders if our leaders are living in a different country. Barely three years into the tenure of President Tinubu, the machinery of governance is already grinding to a halt, not because of a lack of resources or capable security chiefs, but because political ambition has devoured the present. Governors are forming alliances for the next cycle. Ministers are positioning their godfathers. Politicians are mobilizing funds from various sources for campaign war chests. Rallies disguised as town hall meetings are already being planned.
In any sane nation facing a multi-front insurgency, this would be treason of the highest order. In Nigeria, it is simply “politics.” The arithmetic is devastating. The 2027 election is more than 1,000 days away. In those 1,000 days, thousands more Nigerians will die if the current trajectory holds. Yet our leaders behave as though the only emergency is the one that threatens their seat. They have confused governance with electioneering. They believe that winning votes is the same as protecting lives. The farmer in Zamfara who has not seen his land in two years does not care about zoning formulas. The mother in Kaduna who paid her last savings as ransom does not measure performance by campaign slogans. The displaced family in Borno does not ask which party controls the local government. They ask one question: “Can I survive until tomorrow?” And the answer, from a leadership distracted by 2027, is a deafening silence.
This obsession with the next election has tangible, bloody consequences. Security votes, constitutionally meant for covert operations, are diverted to “sensitization” (a euphemism for voter mobilization). Police commissioners are appointed based on political loyalty rather than competence. Military operations are delayed because politicians fear that a successful raid in an opponent’s local government might hand the opponent a publicity victory. The fight against insecurity has been subcontracted topolitical strategists, not generals.
We have seen this movie before. In 2019, while Boko Haram rampaged, campaigns dominated the airwaves. In 2023, while bandits closed the Abuja-Kaduna Road, politicians shook hands at rallies. And now, for 2027, the cycle is repeating before the previous one has even been properly buried. The difference is that the insecurity is worse. The bandits are better armed. The citizens are more desperate. And the distraction is deadlier.
At this juncture, it is germane to ask,” What is to be done?”
First, we must break the cultural silence. Nigerians must begin to publicly shame any politician who holds a political gathering or launches a campaign initiative amid the raging spate of insecurity across the country. A national pact is needed: no politics until the security index falls below a crisis threshold.
Second, civil society must demand a constitutional amendment that criminalizes early campaigning. A law that restricts political activities to the final six months before an election would force leaders to govern for three and a half years instead of squandering the term on ambition.
Third, the media must stop normalizing 2027 speculation. Every headline that asks, “Who will run?” instead of “Who is dying?” is an accomplice to the distraction.
But ultimately, the remedy lies with the voter. In 2027, when the ballots are cast, Nigerians must remember: any politician who spent 2024, 2025, and 2026 plotting for votes instead of fighting for our lives does not deserve a single vote. Let their obsession become their undoing. Let the deadliest distraction become the reason they are retired from public life.
Because if our leaders cannot see beyond the ballot box to the blood-soaked fields of Nigeria, then they do not deserve to see the ballot box at all. The nation that obsesses over 2027 may find that by 2027; there is no nation left to obsess over.
