Reporting News and opinions
There is a clean, structural reason Nigerian election season feels less like a celebration of democracy and more like a high-stakes tactical thriller. We built an election system where the referee is hired by one of the teams, trained by one of the teams, and paid out of a purse controlled by one of the teams.
There is a specific, quiet corner in Abuja where Nigeria’s most brilliant ideas go to die. It isn’t marked by a monument, but by dust. It is the graveyard of panels, commissions, and committees a place where billions of Naira and thousands of hours of expert labor are neatly bound into volumes, submitted in front of flashing cameras, and promptly forgotten.
How Major Gideon Orkar's abortive putsch of 1990 handed Sani Abacha the power base that would ultimately devour IBB's grand design for permanent rule and why no dictator should ever be grateful to his own saviour.
In 1993, during the dark days following the military takeover that brought Sani Abacha to power, one Nigerian Army officer took an unusual step. Instead of consolidating his position within the new regime, he walked away.
The genius of constitutional democracy is not merely that elections are held. It is that power is divided. Every institution is expected to possess enough independence to say “no” when necessary.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 