Another election season has opened in Nigeria and the script looks familiar. Posters are appearing before candidates have officially agreed to contest, small groups in hotel conference rooms are announcing that millions of citizens are begging their man to run, and politicians who have spent years behind tinted windows and police escorts are suddenly remembering that Nigerians sell roasted corn by the roadside and carry babies in the market. Food vendors should prepare. This is the only period some leaders remember the street.
Watching several election cycles reveals something clear: Nigeria runs two economies at once.
The first is the official economy. That is the one heard on the news, with inflation figures, GDP growth, exchange rates and unemployment numbers with enough decimal points to make suffering look carefully measured.
The second is the economy of politics. This one does not appear in official statistics, but it may be the fastest growing sector in the country. Its branches are everywhere, from Abuja to state capitals, local government headquarters, wards and WhatsApp groups. It has investors, brokers, wholesalers, retailers, consultants, apprentices and professional praise singers. And unlike other sectors, it never complains about lack of cash during election year.
Around this second economy sits the system where political power decides who gets what. Who gets appointments, contracts, licences, waivers, concessions, a road, a transformer, or just the chance to see somebody important. In simple terms, one side asks: how does power share wealth? The other side asks: how does wealth buy power and what does it expect back? One is about sharing the national cake. The other is about who supplied the flour, who baked it, who brought the knife, and who has been waiting since 1999 for his own slice.
The queue forms even before winners are announced. Long before the oath of office, a full industry gathers around a candidate. Financiers, party leaders, delegates, coordinators, strategists, mobilisers, youth leaders, women leaders, elders, stakeholders and those whose only title is that they made it possible. Some contribute ideas. Some bring money. Some bring vehicles. Some pray so loudly that they later expect a post as Special Adviser on spiritual mobilisation. Everyone is investing something.
So by the time votes are counted, the winner does not enter an empty room. The winner enters a crowded marketplace of promises. Party leaders expect recognition for their structure. Financiers expect dividends. Communities demand appointments. Contractors expect projects. Even distant acquaintances suddenly recover memory. Someone remembers sharing groundnuts with the winner in boarding school thirty years ago. Another brings a blurred photo from a rally where he stood several hundred metres away. Victory in Nigeria is a powerful genealogical research tool. The successful candidate suddenly has more brothers, cousins and childhood friends than his parents could have produced.
Not all these expectations are wrong. Democracy needs coalitions. Supporters deserve to be heard. Every region needs representation. But there is a thin line between legitimate inclusion and turning government into a repayment centre, and in Nigeria that line often disappears.
This happens because contesting in Nigeria is financially traumatic. The costs are visible everywhere: nomination forms, campaign offices across large constituencies, travel, advertising, mobilization, protecting votes, feeding crowds that develop exceptional appetites whenever democracy is discussed. Behind the posters is a larger informal economy of transport allowances, hotel bills and media costs that no one publishes or audits. Democracy may belong to all, but its entry ticket is very expensive. So the right question is not just who won, but who paid for the victory.
Many contributions are not donations, they are investments. Contributors see them as fixed deposits in a political bank, with interest payable in contracts, appointments, regulatory favour or unrestricted access. The candidate may enter office carrying an invisible ledger. On one page are promises to citizens. On the other page are debts to financiers. Unfortunately, the second page is often printed in larger font. That is why appointments sometimes reward loyalty over competence, contracts reward presence during the struggle, and projects are located by electoral arithmetic rather than need. And that struggle can be anything, including struggling not to sleep during late night meetings or struggling to defect from the losing party to the winning one before results are announced.
This explains why elections feel like battles for economic survival rather than contests of ideas. Losing does not just mean a manifesto will not be implemented. Many manifestos retire quietly after inauguration anyway. Losing means exclusion from the networks through which opportunities flow. Government is not just the referee here. Government is the largest player, the owner of the stadium, the supplier of the ball and, on difficult days, the one who interprets the final score. When government is that big, knowing the right person becomes more profitable than knowing the right thing. Relationships become working capital.
Yet citizens are not innocent bystanders in this system. The system is also kept alive because survival demands it. Where jobs are scarce and institutions are weak, access to a politician becomes insurance. People go to legislators for school fees, hospital bills, jobs, funerals and rent. A legislator elected to make laws is expected to run a scholarship board, employment bureau, hospital fund, microfinance bank and road construction company. If he does not spray money at a wedding, his political future is in trouble. Communities demand roads and boreholes from lawmakers because the agencies that should provide them are missing. So a citizen can condemn patronage on morning radio and seek it in the evening to pay a bill. The tragedy is not just dependence on favour, it is that the state has made favour more reliable than rights.
That is why changing leaders alone never seems to change much. Every new leader comes in through the same networks, same financiers, same party structures. The furniture is already arranged and the queue has collected numbered tickets, though some important people have no intention of waiting for their turn. This is also why just changing from presidential to parliamentary system will not automatically fix behaviour. Westminster can be imported and still be operated like Wuse Market. The title may change from President to Prime Minister, but the same political creditors will simply update the name on their invoices.
What needs to change is both sides. How power shares economic opportunities must change: contracts by open competition, not private access; appointments that balance diversity with competence; projects that follow need and population, not political volume. And how money buys power must change: campaign finance must be transparent, parties must publish credible accounts, and the cost of contesting must be reduced so that only the very wealthy or those sponsored by powerful interests are not the only ones who can run.
Above all, institutions must replace benevolence. A citizen should not need to know a commissioner to get healthcare, a legislator to get a scholarship, or a minister to get a fair chance. Every public service delivered as a right reduces dependence on patronage. Every transparent process removes another item from the political market.
The real challenge is not who wins the next election. It is what winning means. If winning continues to mean control over a huge distribution network, elections will remain expensive, desperate and divisive. If institutions become stronger than the individuals who temporarily occupy them, power will become less commercially valuable, losing will become less terrifying, and politics may become what it should be.
Whoever wins will inherit the same table, same cake and same long queue outside. The question is whether there will be courage to change the sharing formula, or just to sit down and cut another slice.
