Nigeria has one of the most vibrant political cultures in the world. Elections are fiercely contested, political negotiations are constant, and the power struggle dominates national conversation almost daily. Yet beneath this energetic activity lies a troubling contradiction: politics in Nigeria increasingly operates without a clear public purpose. As you wrote, politics has become ‘a largely privatised arena in which access to power is valued less for service than for the privileges it confers’.
In societies that have achieved sustained development, politics functions as a mechanism for debating collective priorities and pursuing national progress. Competition may be intense, but it is ultimately tied to public welfare, economic transformation, and institutional strengthening. In Nigeria, however, political activity has gradually drifted away from these goals. Public office is widely perceived not as a platform for responsibility but as a gateway to influence, security, and economic advantage. Losing office often means losing access to an entire ecosystem of privilege, making political contests existential.
This commercialisation of political power has become one of Nigeria’s most significant obstacles to development. Politics increasingly resembles an investment activity, with public office treated as a strategic asset capable of generating returns through patronage and control of state resources. As a result, the distribution of opportunities often reflects the interests of those who control political machinery rather than coherent national priorities. Elections become battles over access to state patronage, while governance is reduced to managing networks of competing interests. The state gradually loses its developmental character and becomes primarily an instrument for allocating benefits.
This condition did not emerge suddenly. For decades, Nigeria’s political economy has been shaped by struggles over oil revenues and state-controlled wealth. Because the state became the principal source of accumulation, political competition intensified around control of public institutions. Over time, politics became less connected to production and long-term development and more centred on distribution and access.
The consequences are visible across the economy. Infrastructure projects are initiated and abandoned as administrations change. Public institutions remain weak because institutional strength often conflicts with the interests of actors who benefit from discretionary control. Economic policies lack continuity, while long-term planning gives way to short-term political calculations. Governance becomes reactive rather than strategic, with policies designed around immediate political pressures instead of broader developmental goals. This weakens the state’s ability to address structural challenges such as unemployment, low productivity, industrial decline, and failing public services.
Nigeria’s electricity crisis illustrates this problem clearly. Solving the power challenge requires sustained planning, institutional coordination, and long-term investment. Yet political systems driven by short-term survival and patronage struggle to maintain such continuity. The same pattern appears in agriculture, education, healthcare, and industrial policy, where ambitious visions are repeatedly undermined by weak implementation and inconsistent commitment.
The erosion of public purpose also shapes the relationship between citizens and the state. In societies where institutions function effectively, citizens relate to the government through rights, obligations, and shared expectations. In Nigeria, however, many citizens increasingly approach the state through networks of patronage, ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation. Access often depends less on citizenship than on proximity to power. This weakens public trust and national cohesion. Citizens begin to see the state not as a collective institution working for the common good but as an arena controlled by competing interests. Cynicism replaces civic confidence, and public institutions lose legitimacy.
Yet the political class alone cannot bear full responsibility. Society itself has adapted to the logic of patronage politics. Poverty, economic insecurity, and weak institutions encourage citizens to seek survival through personal networks rather than confidence in public systems. Political actors exploit these conditions, but they are also sustained by them.
This is especially tragic because Nigeria possesses enormous potentials: a large and energetic population, abundant natural resources, and a deeply entrepreneurial society. But potential alone does not produce development. Nations that achieved sustained progress did so not merely because they possessed resources but because they built political cultures that linked power to production, institution-building, and national development. Their elites, despite internal rivalries, were constrained by the imperative of advancing collective prosperity.
Meaningful reform in Nigeria remains difficult because the crisis is deeper than electoral rules or administrative procedures. Electoral reforms alone cannot resolve a political culture that lacks public purpose. Anti-corruption campaigns, though important, cannot fully succeed if politics itself remains commercialised. The challenge is structural, institutional, and moral.
Ultimately, Nigeria’s future depends on whether politics can recover a genuine sense of public purpose. Development becomes possible when political competition is tied not merely to distributing benefits but to expanding opportunity, productivity, and institutional capacity. A society advances when power is exercised with a vision larger than personal accumulation. Until that happens, Nigeria may continue to experience the paradox that has defined much of its post-independence history: intense political activity coexisting with weak developmental outcomes. Politics will remain vibrant, but the public purpose necessary to transform national potential into national progress will remain elusive.