Nigeria Democracy Is Not Broken It Is Being Stress-Tested

Every election cycle, a chorus of voices declares Nigerian democracy dead. Every cycle, they are wrong — not because Nigerian democracy is healthy, but because they fundamentally misunderstand what democracy is.

Democracy is not a destination. It is a process, often ugly, frequently painful, always contested. The Nigerian democratic project, now in its twenty-fifth consecutive year, has survived military temptation, ethnic manipulation, judicial interference and the chronic underfunding of democratic institutions.

The genuine threats to Nigerian democracy are structural. They are the voter suppression baked into the geography of polling units. They are the electoral financing rules that exist on paper and nowhere else. They are the party primaries that reward loyalty over competence.

Fixing these things requires not outrage but patience, organisation and the unglamorous work of building institutions that outlast individual administrations. Nigerian civil society is doing this work. Nigerian democracy is not broken. It is being stress-tested.

Written by

Chisom Adaeze