Let us stop pretending. Nigeria is running a Yahoo-version of democracy — the type that looks legitimate on paper, but when you click “verify,” you realise the system has been hacked by Executive Overlords and their foot soldiers in agbada.
The State Governor is the Supreme Leader, Field Marshal of State Funds, Mumu-Button Commander-in-Chief, while the House of Assembly is the spiritual choir responsible for chanting “Yes Daddy” before, during, and after every executive request.
👑💀 Nigeria’s Governors Don’t Get Sworn In — They Get Enthroned
What many call “inauguration” is actually a coronation disguised with the national anthem.
By Day 3 in office:
The Governor starts walking like a demigod Commissioners kneel to greet him Civil servants develop prophetic gifts to anticipate his wishes State Assembly members become royal eunuchs — loyal, voiceless, and harmless
In some states, the Governor doesn’t just rule the state; he owns it — the land, the budget, the legislators, and somehow, your great-grandfather’s farmland too.
🧎♂️🐕 State Assemblies Have Become Executive Petting Zoos
Forget “checks and balances.”
What we have is “licks and massages.”
Nigerian State Assemblies have mastered four legislative postures:
Kneel and Obey Nod and Approve Bow and Clap Silence and Collect
The legislative arm has become so domesticated that if a Governor says “Sit!” they ask, “On which side, Your Excellency — left or right?”
📜🪓 Impeachment in Nigeria: A Weapon of Mass Subservience
Impeachment was designed to check abuse of power.
In Nigeria, it is:
A loyalty test A political firing squad A fear-injection tool
Deputy Governors are impeached the way Nigerians change phone cases — frequently, emotionally, and without explanation.
Reasons for impeachment include:
Failure to hail the Governor with enough enthusiasm Breathing independently Suspected ambition
💸🔪 Financial Autonomy: A Crime Punishable by Political Death
Any legislator who suggests financial autonomy instantly becomes:
“Disloyal” “Working for opposition” “A threat to stability”
Next thing:
Mace goes missing, police seal the Assembly, Speaker is impeached in a hotel, and a new Speaker is sworn in by 5 members at 2:17am behind Keke Napep park.
🧠💤 Many Legislators Are Not Lawmakers — They Are Political Errand Boys
Let’s be brutally honest:
Many State Assembly members lack the capacity to draft a meaningful bill. Some can’t spell “oversight” without autocorrect and holy water.
Their priority is not governance — it is survival:
Survival of the allowance Survival of the Prado allocation Survival of the second-term ticket Survival of their rice-sharing ministry
You cannot expect intellectual legislation from individuals whose greatest political philosophy is,
“No offend oga.”
🫵🏽 And the Citizens? Also Guilty.
Nigerians trade political accountability for crumbs:
2 cups of rice 1 Ankara wrapper N5,000 transfer on election day Promise of borehole that never comes
The people expect nothing, demand nothing, and accept everything — then act shocked when democracy rots.
Democracy requires citizens.
Nigeria has spectators and survivalists, not citizens.
⚠️ The Silent Truth No One Wants to Admit
Nigeria’s democracy is not dying.
It is dead, embalmed, and we are spraying air freshener to manage the smell.
At the Federal level, we complain.
But the real burial of democracy is happening in the states — quietly, efficiently, and with the full cooperation of legislative sellouts.
🧨 What Must Happen — Before Nigeria Becomes a Fully Certified Dictatorship
Citizens must become politically violent — not with weapons, but with consequences: voting out stooges, publicly shaming sellouts, and refusing kneel-and-collect politics. Media must stop reporting Assembly disgrace with polite grammar. Call it what it is: legislative prostitution. Civil society must stop hosting “capacity-building workshops” and start hosting Recall Festivals. Governors must face the fear of losing power — the only language a political emperor understands.
🧵 Final Thread
If Nigeria continues this way, citizens will soon need permission from the Governor to think, and the Assembly will pass it as “mental activity regulation law.”
Until the day State Assemblies stop behaving like royal shrines of executive worship, Nigeria will never practice democracy — only a beautifully packaged civilian dictatorship.
And the day Nigerians finally wake up and say “Enough!”, the Governors and their legislative houseboys will realise a painful truth:
A people you keep on their knees eventually learn to stand — and once they stand, kings begin to fall.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 