BY ABADOM LAWRENCE AMECHI
THERE is perhaps no word that has been so badly abused in Nigerian politics as the word “strategy.”
In a normal democracy, strategy should mean the ability of a political candidate or party to persuade voters through ideas, policies, competence, character, leadership experience and a convincing vision of the future. It should mean building institutions, mobilising citizens, communicating a message and earning the confidence of the electorate.
This is one of the most disturbing features of our politics. In the Nigerian political marketplace, political alignment can become a form of absolution. Once you are inside the ruling political structure, your past may suddenly become less important. Your political relevance can matter more than your record. Your ability to mobilise votes can become more valuable than your ability to govern.
But in Nigeria, the meaning of strategy appears to have undergone a dangerous transformation. Here, strategy can mean vote buying. Strategy can mean manipulating the electoral process. It can mean deploying political thugs to intimidate voters, collecting Permanent Voter Cards ahead of an election, inducing voters with money and food, or mobilising state resources to transport people to polling units. It can mean having powerful allies within the electoral system. It can mean having influence over institutions that should ordinarily operate independently.
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Strategy can mean having the judiciary on your side. It can mean having religious leaders, traditional rulers and influential opinion leaders singing your praises, as Nigerians witnessed during the political drama surrounding the 2023 presidential election. Strategy can even mean ensuring that officials accused of wrongdoing never face the full consequences of the law because they belong to the political family that controls power. This is where the Nigerian tragedy begins.
When political strategy becomes the art of winning at all costs rather than governing well, democracy becomes nothing more than an elaborate competition for access to the treasury. Once election is won and government is formed, the politicians celebrate, while the people wait for the next four years to discover the price they must pay for the victory.
You will understand the full meaning of “strategy” when you observe that a candidate’s manifesto becomes less important than his ability to distribute money, food and other inducements.
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When you notice that campaigns that should be serious examinations of competing visions for the country increasingly become political carnivals where candidates dance, supporters sing, politicians distribute bread, noodles, biscuits and cash, crowds are assembled, vehicles are provided and politicians make grand promises, that is the Nigerian version of political strategy.
It is deeply annoying that political apologists and ethnic jingoists will tell you that elections are not about a candidate’s past record, background, competence or character. According to them, it is all about “strategy.” Strategy has become the convenient excuse for everything — including conduct that would ordinarily be condemned as criminal, immoral or abnormal.
In this warped political culture, a strategist does not need to convince the people with ideas, policies or a credible record. He does not need to campaign on what he intends to do for the country. He only needs to master the strategy. And once the strategy works, everything else, character, competence, integrity and even the past — suddenly become irrelevant.
With strategy, detailed plans for education, healthcare, security, employment, industrialisation, infrastructure and institutional reforms are not important.
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The serious debates about how to build a productive economy? The conversation about how to make the naira stronger, reduce unemployment, improve electricity supply, strengthen the justice system and dismantle the structures that make corruption profitable are not important. Just strategy. Apparently, those things are not considered important enough. The important thing is to win. And if winning is the only objective, almost anything can be justified in the name of strategy.
Through the bridge of strategy, politician can cross from one party to another and suddenly become a “reformed” statesman. Yesterday’s accusations are forgotten. Yesterday’s political enemies become today’s friends. Yesterday’s alleged sins are suddenly irrelevant because the politician has joined the winning political family.
America, from where Nigeria borrowed much of its presidential system, certainly understands political strategy. But strategy in a functioning democracy is supposed to be about winning the argument, presenting a compelling programme and convincing citizens that your leadership offers a better future. This is what we want our 2027 campaign to be. About issues and not emotion.
This is one of the most disturbing features of our politics. In the Nigerian political marketplace, political alignment can become a form of absolution. Once you are inside the ruling political structure, your past may suddenly become less important. Your political relevance can matter more than your record. Your ability to mobilise votes can become more valuable than your ability to govern.
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nd this is why strategy, in its Nigerian political interpretation, often has little to do with academic qualifications, leadership experience, competence, integrity or demonstrable achievements. It does not ask: What have you done? It asks: Who do you know? It does not ask: What will you do for Nigeria? It asks: How much machinery can you mobilise? It does not ask: What is your record? It asks: Can you win? This is a dangerous way to build a nation.
Even more dangerous is the role of identity in this political arrangement. Since 2023, strategy has been used to encourage Nigerians to look at politics through the lenses of tribe and religion. Instead of asking whether a candidate can provide good governance, citizens are encouraged to ask where he comes from, which religion he practises and which ethnic group he represents. Which combination of religion will sell faster – Muslim/Muslim or Christian/Muslim.
The result is predictable. A politician can fail spectacularly and still retain the support of his ethnic or religious constituency simply because the political conversation has been reduced to identity.
A competent candidate can be rejected because he does not belong to the “right” tribe. A corrupt politician can be defended because he is “our son.” An incompetent leader can be celebrated because he is “one of us.”
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What happened in 2023 should force Nigerians to ask difficult questions about the way we understand political competition. Too much of the conversation was framed around ethnicity, religion and regional ownership of political power. But beneath those emotional arguments was something deeper. The ordinary Nigerian was not the real beneficiary of the struggle.
The poor man who was given a few thousand naira to vote did not become richer because his preferred candidate won. The unemployed graduate did not suddenly get a job. The struggling trader did not suddenly become prosperous. The farmer did not automatically receive security. The family struggling to pay school fees did not become economically secure. The political elite, however, retained access to the machinery of government.
This is why the Nigerian political struggle is, in many respects, a class struggle disguised in ethnic and religious clothing. The bourgeois political class can fight amongst itself for control of the wheel of government and then persuade the poor masses that the fight is about tribe or religion.
Strategy is actually a way to manipulate the naive and unsuspecting masses. The ordinary people are mobilised to defend politicians who will eventually return to the same table and negotiate among themselves. The poor are told that their enemy is another ethnic group. They are told that their religion is under threat. They are told that their region must produce the president. The masses fight over identity; the political elite negotiates over power.
America, from where Nigeria borrowed much of its presidential system, certainly understands political strategy. But strategy in a functioning democracy is supposed to be about winning the argument, presenting a compelling programme and convincing citizens that your leadership offers a better future. This is what we want our 2027 campaign to be. About issues and not emotion.
