If you must be addressed as ‘Excellency’ the process that brought you in must be excellent. – Peter Obi
When the Nigerian Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced its reviewed timetable for the commencement of electoral campaigns in July 2026, it was widely believed that the electoral umpire was merely garnishing already full-blown campaign activities which began as early as 2023 but which gathered momentum in 2024.
In the past, candidates and political parties were queried or punished for jumping the gun. In recent times impunity has become the order of the day, with the ruling party dictating the pace, and INEC merely granting their imprimatur to such violations. This has led opposition parties to accuse INEC of pandering to the whims and caprices of the presidency. Indeed, its chairman has been widely cirticised for what opposition leaders and social media critics identify as his partisan disposition. The chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan has not come clean of these allegations but rather has out-sourced his defence to those who may be seen as press agents or institutional public relations apologists.
Did campaigns really start on the 19th of August as stipulated in INEC’s official timetable and press release? According to Section 98 (1) of the 2026 Electoral Act, ‘the period of campaigning in public by every political party shall commence 150 days before polling day and end 24 hours before that day’ But what have we seen in Nigeria? When defections by state governors mainly from the mangled PDP started, and each occasion was a campaign platform for January 2027, the INEC looked on helpless and speechless. Many observers complained that campaigns had started too early under the old INEC timetable which had elections scheduled for March 2026. INEC would not be bothered because as a weak institution, it did not have the spine to speak against violations by the ruling party, even as it was quite vociferous when matters affected the opposition parties. But you may ask, if you are not hypocritical about it, ‘what constitutes a campaign?’ When some politicians are popping champagnes at political campaign rallies, you wonder if the concept is not being abused or corrupted.
A campaign, in its ordinary sense means a series of actions or activities intended to influence political, social, economic, developmental and other results or outcomes in the hope of bringing about social or political change. Out of this context emerges the conduct of sometimes ruthless military or other actions against a group in the promotion of a cause as you have in military campaigns. In the socio-political contest, it is the execution of a political plan based on a political party manifesto and it usually involves candidates addressing their supporters and other potential voters at the hustings, town hall meetings, door-to-door consultations, fundraising dinners, public lectures, involving social and cultural groups, alumni associations, business and professional groups, and youth associations, all in efforts to sell the political candidates through their presentations. Even Satan carries campaigns for membership of the Satanic Clubs.
Today, political campaigns are non-existent in their true sense. What we have are bazaars – a marketplace of jesters, entertainers and empty nothings. If you hope to hear anything useful or educative at political campaigns, then you are in for a rude shock. When the political organizers and event managers rent a crowd for you, all you have to think about is logistics – political kinetics, thank-you-for-your-time payment, cultural dancers, pop stars, the ladies in their flowery plumes and outsize headgears they call ‘canopies’, and empty promises, insults, abuses and slander of their opponents. Just sound and fury, signifying nothing! This happens when the candidate is a high profile person. Others don’t even show up at campaigns except to arrange for thugs, cultists, and other criminal elements, who can help them rig elections. That is their campaign.
The senior politicians use them to do their dirty jobs, while they announce solemn assemblies, and call for peace in-between. They also reserve funds for the chambers and the courtrooms because they know that the violations and breaches of the electoral process will eventually take them to where logic could be stood on its head. You could be told by the learned people that you should have known and recorded the intentions of your opponent before he filed his party nomination form and for failing to know that the election was going to be rigged, and that you are not worthy to represent your people, because you have not proved beyond unreasonable doubt that your opponent did not have the plan to rig before the voting!
At the end, the purposes for electioneering campaigns are defeated and the smart-alecs go home celebrating without campaigning and winning elections. Champagne and other exotic drinks like Thief and Cooper are used in celebrating victories that were never won. And the cycle goes on.
In this rape of Nigerians, political crooks, fake religious minsters, turncoat academics, disoriented youths, and criminal elements of different shades will beat their chests and proclaim: We told you! But they too will be the first to complain when electoral palliatives run out. Whither Nigeria?