Every four years, Nigerians go to the polls with renewed hope and every four years, I watch that hope dissolve into the same painful disappointment. Elections come and go like seasons, yet leadership remains tragically absent. In a nation blessed with brilliance but held hostage by broken institutions, I find myself compelled to ask a difficult question, beyond the ballot box, is there still a future for true leadership in Nigeria? I ask this not as a pessimist, but as someone who has observed with clarity and conviction how our democracy has mastered the ritual of elections while abandoning the essence of leadership.
I have come to accept a hard truth, elections do not guarantee leadership. We have perfected the ceremony of voting, but neglected the responsibility that should follow it. What our politics often produces today are winners, not leaders men who desperately seek offices they neither respect nor understand. I have seen people fight for power without any intention to serve. And when they finally occupy the office, they abandon the burden of responsibility that true leadership demands. For me, leadership has never been about votes; it is about sacrifice, courage, and truth three virtues Nigeria is slowly starving out of its public life.
I have watched integrity become a liability. I have seen vision treated as a threat. I have witnessed how mediocrity has turned into a national culture rewarded, celebrated, and protected. Excellence is mocked. Competence is sidelined. And everywhere I look, from the insecurity consuming our Northern communities to the economic despair tightening its grip on the South, I see the consequences of a nation that suffocates its best minds while empowering its weakest instincts. In such a place, true leadership does not simply struggle it suffocates.
What troubles me most is how Nigeria has deliberately weakened the role of the opposition. Instead of treating the opposition as a democratic necessity, this government treats them as enemies of the state sometimes with a hostility greater than what is shown to bandits and terrorists. I say this with full moral clarity, Nigeria has criminalized dissent. I have seen opposition parties denied public spaces, their rallies disrupted, their leaders harassed, and institutions weaponized to silence alternative voices. In the last election cycle, from Kano to Lagos, from Rivers to Benue, I witnessed how the machinery of the state was deployed to intimidate, suppress, and shrink political competition.
My concerns are not merely emotional, they are backed by scholarship. When I read John Keane’s “The Life and Death of Democracy” I found a striking warning, any democracy that suppresses its opposition is already manufacturing dictatorship. And in Larry Diamond’s “Ill Winds” I saw a mirror of our reality the erosion of institutions, executive impunity, and the deliberate shrinking of civic space. I felt as if Nigeria was written on every page. What I read confirmed what I have observed, we are witnessing the slow decay of democratic foundations.
Rigging has become institutionalized. Elections have become transactions. I have watched politicians abandon the art of persuasion and embrace the science of manipulation. Campaigns are no longer about ideas, they are about intimidation, propaganda, and financial muscle. INEC itself now behaves like a ministry of political survival producing outcomes that often contradict the will of the people. Mandates are rewritten in collation centers, under the guard of state power, while citizens are told to accept results that betray their choices. After every flawed election, we pretend democracy has spoken. But I have seen enough to know this, elections in Nigeria have become hollow promises.
This is why I no longer believe that the salvation of this country will come from the next election. I believe it will come only when true leaders emerge leaders who see power not as a prize, but as a platform for service. Leaders who understand that governance is stewardship, not domination. Leaders who come to serve, not to rule. If Nigeria is to rise again, it must rediscover the meaning of leadership.
One of the greatest tragedies of our time is that Nigeria has become a nation starved of role models. When I look at the youth, I ask myself, who do they admire today? Influencers without impact? Politicians without principles? Public figures without character? I worry because societies rise or fall based on the examples they celebrate. If our young people inherit a culture built on lies, impunity, and transactional politics, then we are manufacturing a future far worse than the present we complain about. I believe we must restore leadership to public life through character, through integrity, through courage.
Some may call this idealism, but I write from a place of painful clarity. I have seen what happens when leadership fails. I have seen institutions crumble under the weight of mediocrity. I have seen arrogance replace humility in public service. I have seen dissent treated as treason. And I refuse to stay silent in a country that desperately needs voices willing to speak truth without fear.
Nigeria still has a future, but only if its citizens reclaim the meaning of leadership. Only if we stop celebrating politicians and start celebrating character. Only if the opposition rises again not as desperate seekers of power, but as custodians of truth, accountability, and national conscience. Only if the educated class stops watching from the sidelines and remembers its duty to defend democratic values.
If we fail to do this, elections will continue producing winners, but Nigeria will continue losing.
I write this because I still believe in a country where leadership is earned, not purchased. I still believe in a democracy where the ballot has meaning. And I still believe firmly that beyond the ruins of our failed politics, true leadership can rise again, if we have the courage to demand it and the honesty to defend it.
Hon. Abubakar MG Political Thinker | Reform Advocate
15 November 2025
abubakarmuddaha45@gmail.com
