Will Nigerians Believe Empty Electoral Promises?

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a feast meant to celebrate power is haunted by the murdered Banquo: triumph cannot silence the evidence of what preceded it. Nigeria’s electoral theatre often resembles that banquet. As the 2027 electioneering campaign gathers momentum, candidates will promise security, jobs, electricity, affordable food, good schools and hospitals, as though the nation’s difficulties began yesterday and salvation has just arrived. But the ghosts are familiar: promises from earlier campaigns, projects announced and abandoned, targets postponed, and citizens told to wait.

Since “civilian rule” returned in 1999, Nigeria has experienced achievements, policy experiments, democratic transfers and reforms, alongside persistent failures in essential services and accountability. Campaign language has travelled much farther than implementation. Voters must ask: what evidence makes this promise believable?

The ballot changes governments, not economic laws or institutions. Anyone suggesting otherwise sells enchantment as policy.

The Country That Keeps Starting Again

Nigeria’s electricity story illustrates the distance between announcement and outcome. In 2003, the Obasanjo administration pursued a target of 10,000 megawatts; in 2015, Muhammadu Buhari campaigned on expanding generation and distribution towards 40,000 megawatts within four to eight years. Further interventions followed, yet dependable power remained elusive. Repeated deadlines without clear explanations teach citizens to distinguish political intention from delivered service.

Employment and diversification have followed a familiar rhythm: governments promote entrepreneurship and job creation while many Nigerians face insecure livelihoods. Anti-corruption declarations have also recurred alongside allegations of misconduct and controversies over public procurement. Slogans must be tested against outcomes.

Imagine Sisyphus, condemned by myth to push a boulder uphill only to see it roll back. Must Nigerians repeat the same exhausting labour every election cycle, while each new administration presents old problems as fresh discoveries? Which targets were met, which failed, and why? Who was held responsible? Forgetting yesterday makes tomorrow’s exaggerations cheaper. Political amnesia subsidises those seeking votes.

The Prisoners Inside the Palace

Campaigns celebrate personal will; governing exposes structural limits. A president inherits debt obligations, revenue constraints, security threats, constitutional checks, bureaucratic systems and political interests that cannot be abolished by declaration. Governors face their own limits: state revenues are finite, responsibilities differ across levels of government, and some problems require federal cooperation or local implementation. Geography raises costs, economic conditions shape choices, and institutions determine implementation.

Greek mythology offers Icarus, who ignored warnings about his wings and fell when exhilaration defeated judgment. A candidate who promises everything to everyone risks the same descent, mistaking electoral authority for unlimited power. Yet constraints must never become respectable excuses for incompetence. Leaders can prioritise, negotiate, strengthen institutions, improve administration and explain trade-offs honestly. Constraints narrow choices; they do not erase responsibility.

Ask presidential candidates which promises require legislation, which depend on state cooperation, and which can begin through executive action. Ask governors what their constitutional powers permit and where federal funding or local-government coordination is necessary. What will they postpone when revenue falls short? Which popular proposal will they reject because it is unaffordable? A candidate unable to discuss limits advertises an inability to govern.

Make The Arithmetic Public

Every extravagant promise conceals a balance sheet. Free education requires teachers, classrooms, learning materials and sustained funding. Healthcare requires trained personnel, medicines, functioning facilities and transparent procurement. Reliable electricity needs investment in generation, transmission and distribution. Jobs require productive economic activity, not merely recruitment announcements or temporary placements. Roads require maintenance after commissioning ceremonies fade.

Oil receipts fluctuate, debt service competes with public investment, inflation weakens household purchasing power, and governments face more demands than available resources. No serious candidate can promise unlimited benefits without identifying who pays. The electorate should ask for cost estimates, funding sources, timelines, measurable milestones and independent verification.

In Dickens’s Great Expectations, the glittering image of advancement conceals a more complicated reality. If a candidate promises thousands of jobs, are these permanent positions, temporary placements, training opportunities or projections of private-sector employment? If food will become cheaper, how will insecurity affecting farmers, transport costs, storage failures and distribution bottlenecks be addressed? If electricity will improve, what milestones will prove that citizens receive more dependable supply?

Without baselines and deadlines, a manifesto is a collection of adjectives. A promise or pledge becomes credible when progress can be measured and failure identified.

The Psychology of Political Seduction

Political propaganda rarely succeeds through lies alone. Its more sophisticated weapon is selective truth, arranged to flatter existing loyalties and exploit existing grievances. Ethnicity, religion, regional identity, resentment and fear are instruments through which candidates redirect attention from performance towards belonging.

In Plato’s Republic, the allegory of the cave describes prisoners mistaking shadows for reality because shadows are all they have learned to recognise. Nigerian political supporters sometimes inhabit comparable chambers, interpreting every achievement by their preferred candidate as historic genius and every failure as sabotage.

The uncomfortable question is whether citizens genuinely evaluate candidates or merely search for reasons to justify choices already made.

When supporters attack journalists for asking legitimate questions, dismiss auditors presenting inconvenient findings or label every critic an enemy, they become unpaid custodians of political impunity. Their loyalty may feel noble, but its consequences can be disastrous.

Beware the candidate who substitutes personal generosity for public policy, distributes temporary favours while neglecting institutions, or treats public office as private inheritance. A road constructed is useful; a functioning road network sustained through maintenance is transformative. A scholarship awarded is valuable; an adequately funded education system is indispensable.

Demand evidence before emotion. Investigate records, examine budgets, compare promises with outcomes and distinguish genuine accomplishments from publicity. Ask whether candidates tolerate dissent and acknowledge mistakes. Their conduct under scrutiny may reveal more about their future administration than their rehearsed speeches.

From Spectators to Citizens

The danger in 2027 is not simply that dishonest politicians may emerge. It is that voters may reward dishonesty with unquestioning loyalty, then describe predictable disappointment as fate. Democracy cannot guarantee excellent leadership, but it gives citizens tools to scrutinise and replace those who govern.

Study candidates’ records since 1999, especially where they have previously held office. Compare manifestoes with budgets, completed projects, audited accounts and independently verifiable outcomes. Ask what failed, what was learned, and whether explanations match the evidence. Distinguish unavoidable setbacks from preventable failures, honest policy revisions from convenient excuses, and real reform from staged publicity. Demand quarterly reporting and public explanations when milestones are missed.

Machiavelli’s The Prince remains useful not as an instruction manual for manipulation, but as a reminder to examine power as it operates rather than as it advertises itself. Voters must reject the false choice between a messiah and despair. Structural obstacles are real, but they cannot absolve leaders of waste, secrecy or incompetence.

Leaders can choose competence over patronage, transparency over concealment, institutional reform over personality cults, and measurable progress over endless announcements. In 2027, demand costs, timelines, evidence and accountability. Ask what candidates will stop doing, who verifies performance and what follows failure.

A ballot is neither a magic wand nor a blank cheque. It is a conditional mandate entrusted to fallible human beings. The question is no longer whether candidates can promise a brighter future. They all can. The question is whether Nigerians will finally judge them by what they can demonstrate, rather than by what they can make the crowd believe.