BY IDUH ONAH
AS WE gradually inch our way towards the 2027 general elections, one question deserves more than our many political paradoxes: if socio-economic conditions really determine electoral outcomes, what does that say about Nigeria’s political history; and what might it mean for 2027?
In many functional democracies, the logic appears fairly simple. When living standards improve, governments are rewarded; when life becomes intolerable, voters reach for the political eject button. But Nigeria, as usual, has a way of making simple theories work overtime.
In advanced democracies, material conditions automatically influence voting behaviour. When economic circumstances deteriorate, voters are more likely to scrutinise incumbents and question established political loyalties. Under such situations, existential desire competes with, and often overwhelms, traditional party allegiance.
Across the country today, socio-economic hardship has become one of the defining features of everyday life. It has altered household budgets, reshaped aspirations, changed social behaviour and, inevitably, affected perceptions of government. Whether these realities will ultimately determine the outcome of the 2027 elections, however, remains uncertain. But there is little doubt that they will form part of the electorate’s discourse or calculation; and perhaps, a much bigger part than politicians would like to admit.
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In a democracy, elections are supposed to provide citizens with an opportunity to pass judgement on those who govern them. Voters may disagree over ideology, ethnicity, religion, party affiliation or the charisma of a candidate, but the economics of daily life can be a powerful unifying language.
Can I afford food? Can I pay my rent? Is there a job for my son or daughter? Can I afford to transport myself to work? Is electricity available? Can I run my small business without being strangled by operating costs? And, increasingly, can I live and travel without worrying about my security?
These questions can be considerably more persuasive than campaign slogans because they are not theoretical. They arrive every morning, usually without an appointment.
Today, millions of Nigerians are confronting a brutal cost-of-living crisis. Food prices have risen dramatically. Transportation costs have increased. Inflation has steadily eroded purchasing power, while the removal of fuel subsidies has sent ripple effects through virtually every sector of the economy. The cost of production, distribution and consumption has risen, placing enormous pressure on households that were already living close to the edge. The result is a society under considerable economic and psychological strain.
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Perhaps even more troubling is the gradual squeezing of Nigeria’s middle class. Professionals who, even during the Buhari years, which now seem to be a century ago, enjoyed a modest degree of financial security, now find themselves wrestling with rent, school fees, healthcare, transportation and food bills. Savings have disappeared with inflation and devaluation of the naira. Home ownership has become more elusive than ever, and owning a car such an unbearable burden. Long-term financial planning is increasingly being replaced by the more immediate question of how to survive the month. For low-income Nigerians, the situation is even more severe.
All these notwithstanding, Nigerians have shown remarkable ingenuity in adapting to hardship, perhaps with side hustles while the younger generation, either graduates and less educated, increasingly yearn to ‘japa’ (migrate) overseas for greener pastures; an occasional desire in the past by a few Nigerians, but which has now become a national passion in the bid to escape from this ‘shithole’ (apologies to President Trump who used the term for third world countries during an Oval Office meeting on immigration in January 2018 during his first term in office).
In advanced democracies, material conditions automatically influence voting behaviour. When economic circumstances deteriorate, voters are more likely to scrutinise incumbents and question established political loyalties. Under such situations, existential desire competes with, and often overwhelms, traditional party allegiance.
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In Nigeria, however, there is a caveat: hardship matters, so also is insecurity as well as other social and economic variables, but none of them automatically determines how Nigerians vote. Indeed, if they matter, insecurity alone ought to have been a decisive electoral factor for the APC in the 2019 and 2023 general elections. It did not. The party ‘won’ both elections despite the widespread security challenges that confronted us all this while. Instead, opposition parties and politicians who ought to consolidate on the worsening economic hardship and insecurity deficits kept moving in droves to the APC, supposedly bloating its electoral fortunes to 34 out of the 36 state governors, and unprecedented majority in both chambers of the National Assembly.
But again, the Nigerian voter is not a typical rational voter. He is a voter who can be angry about insecurity and still vote for the incumbent that is incapable of curing the insecurity. He is a voter who can be unhappy about inflation and still distrust the opposition; a voter who can complain bitterly about the economy and nevertheless decide that the alternative is worse, or, a voter who can simultaneously hold all three opinions without suffering any psychological crisis.
Naturally, it would be tempting to predict that today’s economic pain must automatically translate into an electoral revolt against the APC in 2027. But Nigerians have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not necessarily vote with their heads but on the basis of some arcane calculations oblivious of the long-term welfare of our society and human condition. Instead, we have often been led in our politics by the urgency of our stomachs, talk about ‘stomach infrastructure’, or on the agenda of ethnic identity as against class or ideological interests.
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But will 2027 be any different? Well, the din coming out of the 2027 political market is particularly interesting.
Supporters of the current economic order argue that difficult decisions were necessary to correct longstanding structural distortions. They maintain that subsidy removal, exchange-rate adjustments or floating the naira in the whirlwind of market forces, amongst other fiscal reforms, are laying the groundwork for future stability and growth. This is despite the maddening reality that the ‘centre can no longer hold’ for millions of families that are incapable of properly feeding and educating their children, of increasing maternal and infant mortality, of youth being pushed into crime, etcetera.
As rational beings, are Nigerians expected to celebrate a promised tomorrow while struggling to survive today in the face of mounting hurdles of new tax regimes and with little or no safety nets? Even if there exist palliatives, as some government spokespersons say, they are mere temporary relief and therefore too insignificant in addressing the deeper vulnerabilities confronting ordinary Nigerians.
Although the elections are still some five months away, and the jury, as they say, is still out; but were it a civilised, educated and conscious society; where people vote on the basis of existential realities, not merely on what they are told to expect, it would be easy to now say goodbye to APC. It is even more annoying, in fact insulting, when the people telling us what we should expect are actively living what they asked us to expect and doing everything possible to cage us in this perpetual bondage.
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Here we are faced with a stark reality – parent reducing meals so the children can eat; the entrepreneur wondering whether to keep the business open when electricity, transportation and input costs keep climbing; the graduate sending applications into an employment black hole; the worker discovering that payday becomes debt payment day, and repeated cycles.
These experiences accumulate and are supposed to influence conversations at home, in markets, workplaces, farms, motor parks and commercial buses. They are supposed to shape perceptions of leadership to be able to weaken loyalty to established political arrangements and make voters more receptive to alternative narratives.
But again, the Nigerian voter is not a typical rational voter. He is a voter who can be angry about insecurity and still vote for the incumbent that is incapable of curing the insecurity. He is a voter who can be unhappy about inflation and still distrust the opposition; a voter who can complain bitterly about the economy and nevertheless decide that the alternative is worse, or, a voter who can simultaneously hold all three opinions without suffering any psychological crisis.
This is why the runup to the 2027 contest is interesting. It is interesting whether the current unprecedented socio-economic hardship will become sufficiently powerful to override the other forces that traditionally shape Nigerian elections.
As the elections approach, we pray that our political actors would therefore be foolish to underestimate the significance of economic realities. They should be foolish to ignore that Nigerians are increasingly evaluating governance through the lens of personal experience. We pray that they should equally be foolish to assume that hardship automatically hands them an electoral advantage as they distribute sachets of rice, salt, bottles of vegetable oil, etc.
We also pray that for many Nigerians, the 2027 election may not simply be about politics; that it should really become a referendum on something much more intimate: survival, dignity, security and the possibility of a life that feels less like a daily negotiation with hardship.
Onah is the Editor-in-Chief of NATIONAL RECORD and writes this column every Wednesday. Send reactions via email to: nationalrecordng@gmail.com, onahiduh@yahoo.co.uk. WhatsApp: +234 8033209749
