Abdul Mahmud: Nigeria’s Democracy at Gunpoint

By Abdul Mahmud

Nigeria’s democracy is once again approaching a dangerous bend in the road. The campaign season for the 2027 elections has not formally begun; but the country is already witnessing familiar and frightening political violence. The signs are unmistakable. The purveyors are known. The silence of those who should speak is loud. If this pattern continues, the 2027 elections risk becoming not a contest of ideas but a blood theatre of intimidation. It is not a bold strategy to claim devotion to democracy while tolerating the violence that slowly destroys it. Those who profess love for the country must understand that democracy cannot survive where thugs are allowed to define the rules of political engagement. Elections are not merely about the casting of ballots, they are about the conditions under which citizens freely organise, campaign and express their political choices without fear. When those conditions collapse, democracy ceases to be a deliberative practice and degenerates into a spectacle enforced by thugs.

Recent events across the country reveal a troubling trajectory. In Benin City, the secretariat of the opposition African Democratic Congress was attacked. Around the same period, the convoy of Peter Obi came under assault in the same city. These were not isolated incidents carried out by faceless thugs operating in the dark. They were acts of political intimidation orchestrated openly to deliver a message. The message is simple and dangerous. Certain political actors believe that violence can substitute for persuasion.

The pattern extends beyond Edo State. In Ubima, Rivers State, the secretariat of the African Democratic Congress was attacked by thugs who reportedly fired gunshots at opposition supporters. The symbolism of this attack should not be ignored. Ubima is not merely a location on the map of the oil-rich delta. It is associated with one of Nigeria’s most prominent opposition politicians, Rotimi Amaechi. An attack in such a location not only carries the unmistakable tone of political signalling, it also tells opponents that certain spaces are no longer safe for political organising. In Cross River State, the story is the same. Suspected political thugs disrupted the commissioning of the African Democratic Congress secretariat in Bakassi Local Government Area. Party members were attacked. Property was destroyed. A routine political activity was turned into a violent spectacle. When commissioning a party office becomes a dangerous undertaking, the foundations of democratic participation are already under assault.

These incidents share several characteristics that should alarm every citizen who values the Nigerian democratic project, kwashiorkored as it is. First, they demonstrate the normalisation of violence in political competition. Violence is no longer hidden. It is unleashed in full public view. It is intended to intimidate supporters and discourage political participation. Second, the response from political authorities has been muted. Silence in the face of political violence is never neutral. It operates as a form of permission. When those who hold power fail to condemn or confront such incidents, they inadvertently subsidise the behaviour. Thugs quickly understand the meaning of this silence. It tells them that the risks are low and the rewards are high. Third, the spread of these incidents across multiple states suggests that they are orchestrated. From Edo to Rivers to Cross River, the pattern is consistent. Opposition spaces are targeted. Party offices are attacked. Supporters are intimidated. This is how democratic space gradually shrinks.

Nigeria has experienced this dangerous progression before. Political violence rarely begins with large scale bloodshed. It begins with smaller acts that test the boundaries of impunity. A secretariat is vandalised. A convoy is attacked. A rally is disrupted. If these acts go unpunished, they evolve into more dangerous forms. Soon the violence escalates into assassinations, armed clashes and widespread electoral intimidation. The greatest danger in the present moment is that Nigeria appears to be entering the early stage of this cycle. The campaign season has not even begun, yet the thugs have already taken the floor. When violence precedes campaigns, the logical conclusion is grim. By the time the election season reaches its peak, the political atmosphere may already be charged with fear. Another worrying dimension is the increasing militarisation of political competition. Reports of gunshots fired by thugs reveal a disturbing shift. In previous decades, political thuggery often involved sticks, machetes and crude weapons. Today firearms are becoming more visible in the hands of political enforcers. This development significantly raises the stakes. Once firearms enter the arena of partisan conflict, the likelihood of fatal encounters increases dramatically.

The implications for the 2027 elections are profound. Elections depend on a climate where political actors can campaign freely and voters can participate without intimidation. Violence destroys this climate. When citizens believe that attending a rally or displaying political allegiance may invite attack, many will choose safety over participation. Low participation weakens legitimacy. Elections conducted under fear produce governments that struggle to command moral authority. The security agencies also face a critical test. The Nigerian Police and other law enforcement bodies are constitutionally mandated to guarantee public order and protect citizens. Their responses to the emerging pattern of violence will determine whether the situation deteriorates or stabilises. Clamp down these attacks would send a powerful message that the state remains in control. Failure to act would reinforce the perception that political violence is a tolerable instrument of power.

Nigerian politicians frequently invoke democracy as a sacred principle, as if democracy is sustained by rhetoric flourishes. It is sustained by behaviour. A political class that allows violence to flourish undermines the very political order from which it derives legitimacy. The present trajectory carries a chilling implication. If politicians continue to arm thugs and intimidate opponents, opposition supporters may eventually feel compelled to protect themselves. When they begin to believe that survival requires self-defence, and the sharpening of knives and matchetes to stay alive, the consequences are catastrophic. Elections then become battlegrounds rather than civic exercises. The language of ballots is replaced by the language of weapons.

Nigeria must not travel down this road again. The country has already endured decades in which political violence distorted democratic development. The return to civilian rule promised a different future. That promise will ring hollow if the political space becomes a theatre of intimidation long before voters reach the polling stations.

The warning signs are already visible. Secretariats are attacked. Convoys are assaulted. Gunshots boom where speeches should be heard. These are not random disturbances or isolated outbursts of anger. They are early signals in a pattern that Nigerians have seen before, the slow corrosion of democratic space by intimidation and impunity. When political offices become targets and supporters are chased away by armed thugs, the message travels far beyond the immediate victims. It tells citizens that politics is no longer a civic exercise but a dangerous undertaking. It warns ordinary voters that participation carries risks. And when fear begins to define the boundaries of political activity, democracy quietly loses its most essential ingredient, the freedom of citizens to organize, assemble and choose without coercion.

Those who truly love Nigeria must act before the edge becomes a cliff. History shows that democracies rarely collapse in a single dramatic moment. They erode gradually, weakened by small acts of intimidation that go unchallenged and by silences that quietly legitimise wrongdoings. When thugs are allowed to determine who may organise, who may campaign and who must withdraw from the public square, the promise of democracy begins to fade. Elections then cease to be contests of ideas and become contests of fear. Nigeria cannot afford that descent. A republic in which violence speaks louder than persuasion is already drifting away from democracy. The country must decide now whether its politics will be governed by the rule of law or by the law of the streets.