2027: CAN NIGERIA LOSE AN ELECTION WITHOUT LOSING ITS MIND?

Nigeria is heading towards another election with an old problem dressed in new language. Everybody says they want peaceful elections. Everybody signs agreements. Everybody appeals for calm. Then the campaign begins, tempers rise, accusations fly, supporters become more militant and every disagreement starts looking like a conspiracy.

That is how elections become dangerous.

The National Peace Accord signed ahead of the 2027 elections ought to have been routine by now. Instead, the fact that another such agreement is necessary tells us something uncomfortable about the country. We have repeatedly found it easier to promise peace than to practise the restraint that makes peace possible.

The real test will come when the stakes become personal.

It is easy for a politician to preach peace while believing victory is within reach. The harder moment comes when the result goes against him. Can he accept defeat without immediately declaring the process fraudulent? Can his supporters hear that verdict without taking to the streets? Can the winner resist the temptation to treat victory as proof that everything he did was justified?

Those are the questions Nigeria should be asking now.

Peter Obi’s recent declaration that he is ready to die defending the votes of Nigerians has generated considerable attention. The context matters. He was speaking about resistance to intimidation and the need for votes to count. That is a legitimate democratic concern. Nobody should be intimidated out of voting, and nobody should be allowed to manipulate an election with the expectation that citizens will simply accept it.

But political language has consequences, especially in an atmosphere already charged with suspicion. The same standard must therefore apply to everybody. Government supporters cannot condemn opposition rhetoric when it becomes dangerous and excuse similar language when it comes from their own side. Opposition politicians cannot demand restraint from the government while preparing their supporters to regard every adverse result as evidence of a stolen election.

Nigeria has done this too often.

Every major election eventually produces a section of the political class that behaves as though only its own victory can be legitimate. Once that mentality takes hold, the election ceases to be a contest for public authority and becomes a struggle over the ownership of the country.

That is where the danger lies.

The government carries the greatest institutional responsibility because it controls the machinery of the state. It must ensure that security agencies behave professionally and impartially. It must allow the electoral commission to work without political intimidation. It must create conditions in which citizens can vote without fear and candidates can challenge irregularities through lawful means.

The opposition also has responsibilities that cannot be wished away. It cannot spend months telling citizens that the system is hopelessly rigged and then complain when some of those citizens conclude that the only answer is confrontation. If opposition politicians believe the electoral process is defective, they must identify the defects, mobilise voters, monitor the process and use the courts where necessary. The democratic answer to a bad election is to strengthen the struggle for a better election, not to make violence the unofficial second round.

There is another hypocrisy that deserves attention.

Political parties frequently demand democracy from the electoral commission while practising very little democracy within their own organisations. Candidates are imposed, factions are manipulated, delegates are influenced and internal disputes are taken to court or settled through political muscle. Yet the same politicians suddenly become passionate defenders of democratic purity when they approach the national election.

The electorate is hardly innocent either.

False information does not become harmless because it is circulated by a popular supporter. A fabricated result, an invented quotation or an inflammatory video can travel across the country before anyone has bothered to establish whether it is true. By then, the damage has already been done.

Social media has made this problem considerably worse. A lie now arrives faster than a correction. Anger is more easily shared than evidence. Politicians understand this and some exploit it deliberately.

The National Peace Committee has itself documented how badly political actors have performed in previous peace agreements. Issue based campaigning has repeatedly been violated, while disinformation and inflammatory political communication have remained serious problems. The committee has also recorded hundreds of deaths from election related violence since 2015.

These are not statistics to be filed away for another conference.

They are warnings.

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The recent violence surrounding the Osun governorship election should have ended any complacency about the distance between political rhetoric and physical danger. An election can produce a credible count and still leave dead bodies behind if political actors and their supporters are unwilling to accept the rules of the contest.

That is why 2027 cannot be reduced to the question of who wins.

Nigeria must also ask what happens the morning after.

If the election is close, will the defeated candidate accept the result if credible observers, polling records and the courts support it? If there are genuine irregularities, will the winner accept legitimate challenges rather than branding every critic an enemy of democracy? If violence breaks out, will security agencies act without regard to party affiliation? If politicians make provocative statements, will the same authorities apply the law regardless of who made them?

And perhaps the most difficult question is this: are Nigerians psychologically prepared to lose an election?

Democracy requires the possibility of losing. A politician who believes he must win at all costs is already a danger to democracy. A supporter who believes his candidate’s defeat is an attack on his existence can easily become a weapon in somebody else’s political calculation.

There is also a lesson for the eventual winner. Winning an election does not confer ownership of Nigeria. The votes give a government authority to govern, not permission to humiliate its opponents, punish dissent or treat criticism as treason.

The defeated side, meanwhile, must understand that concession is not surrender when the process has been credible. It is part of democratic maturity. Where the process has been compromised, challenge it with evidence and lawful action. Where the process has been fair, accept the verdict and begin preparing for the next contest.

This is where institutions matter.

The Independent National Electoral Commission must be trusted enough for Nigerians to believe that their votes will be counted properly. The security agencies must be disciplined enough to understand that their loyalty is to the Constitution, not to the party in power. The judiciary must remain strong enough to adjudicate electoral disputes without fear or favour. Political parties must demonstrate internally the democratic standards they demand nationally.

None of this is impossible.

What is impossible is to keep doing elections the same way and expecting a different national temperament.

Nigeria does not need another solemn gathering where politicians sign documents and pose for photographs before returning to the business of winning at any cost. What the country needs is political behaviour that makes the documents unnecessary.

The 2027 election will test more than our voting system. It will test whether our political class has learned that there must be life after victory and life after defeat.

Nobody should be allowed to steal an election. Nobody should be allowed to manufacture a victory through violence. Nobody should be permitted to turn an electoral dispute into a national emergency.

The winner must know that he has won a mandate, not a kingdom. The loser must know that defeat is not the death of democracy. The voter must know that his ballot is his weapon, and that once he has cast it, he must not surrender his judgement to the politician who claims to speak for him.

Nigeria has survived many disputed elections. It has also paid heavily for them.

The question before 2027 is whether we have finally acquired the maturity to fight fiercely for our votes without fighting ourselves to pieces.

Can Nigeria lose an election without losing its mind?

That may prove to be the most important question of all.