NIGERIA is once again approaching a presidential election. The noise around 2027 is already loud. Rallies are forming. Coalitions are shifting. Politicians who were bitter rivals yesterday are suddenly holding hands today. Yet behind the noise, a simple question refuses to go away. Are Nigerians actually ready for this election? Has any candidate truly captured the heart of the majority?
The honest answer to the first question is a cautious no. Preparedness in Nigeria has never been about ballot papers or voter cards alone. It is about trust. Trust remains the country’s biggest deficit. The Independent National Electoral Commission has spoken openly about how voter apathy has grown from a civic worry into a real security concern.
Turnout fell sharply from over half of registered voters in 2011 to roughly a quarter of them in 2023. That is not a small drop. It tells a story of citizens who have voted before, watched their votes struggle to count, and slowly stopped believing that showing up changes anything.
A recent national survey by Yiaga Africa paints a picture that is both hopeful and worrying at the same time. A large majority of Nigerians say they intend to vote in 2027. Most believe their votes can shape the outcome. That part is encouraging. Nigerians have not fully given up on democracy, no matter how tired they sound in conversation.
The worry comes from what threatens that intention. Fear of violence tops the list of reasons people might stay away from polling units. Weak confidence in INEC’s ability to run a clean process follows closely. Only a fraction of citizens fully trust the commission to deliver a credible result. That gap between wanting to vote and trusting the system to protect that vote is where Nigeria’s real unpreparedness lives.
Insecurity makes this worse. Parts of the north continue to battle banditry and kidnapping. Other regions deal with their own pockets of unrest. Asking a farmer in a troubled community to stand in a queue for hours to vote is asking a lot when his safety is not guaranteed. INEC itself has admitted that an election cannot be called credible if people do not feel safe enough to participate in it. That admission alone says a lot about where things stand.
Political parties themselves present another problem. Many of them are still fighting internal battles over leadership and structure instead of preparing candidates and manifestos that speak to hunger, unemployment, and insecurity. INEC has complained that these internal party crises are distracting from real election planning. When the parties meant to organise the contest cannot organise themselves, it becomes harder to convince ordinary citizens that the system deserves their confidence.
Now to the second question. Have Nigerians settled on a preferred candidate strong enough to dominate the field? No single name has emerged as a runaway favourite for the whole country. President Bola Tinubu carries the advantage every incumbent enjoys. He also has the argument that his economic reforms, painful as they have been, are beginning to yield some results. His opponents insist those reforms have simply deepened suffering for the average Nigerian.
On the opposition side, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi remain the names most frequently mentioned as serious challengers. Yet they have not resolved who among them should lead a joint ticket. This hesitation matters. History has shown that a divided opposition rarely defeats a sitting president in Nigeria, no matter how unpopular that president may be in certain circles.
Obi’s supporters remain fiercely loyal and vocal, especially among younger voters. Loyalty in a movement does not automatically translate into enough votes nationwide, particularly when the movement cannot agree on a single flag bearer.
The Yiaga survey found perhaps the most telling fact of all. Nigerians say the quality of a candidate and questions of security now matter more to them than party loyalty or ethnic identity. That is a shift worth celebrating. Voters are, at least in principle, ready to reward competence over recycled promises. The problem is that no politician currently on the field has fully convinced the public that they possess that competence in abundance.
Nigeria in 2026 stands at a familiar crossroads. The people are willing. The system is shaky. The candidates, for all their ambition, have not yet given the country one clear voice to rally behind. Few are fully confident it will be free of the fears that have haunted every election before it.
- West is a seasoned journalist and development practitioner with over a decade of experience in media, human rights advocacy, and NGO leadership. Her syndicated column, The Wednesday Lens, is published every Wednesday in News Point Nigeria newspaper. She can be reached at bomawest111@gmail.com.