The greatest fear is not who wins, but whether Nigeria will remain united and peaceful after the votes are counted.
Nigeria is once again approaching a defining moment in its democratic journey. As the country moves towards the 2027 presidential election, political activities are gathering momentum, alliances are being formed and politicians are positioning themselves for what promises to be one of the most fiercely contested elections in the nation’s history.
But beneath the excitement of political campaigns lies a disturbing question: Are Nigerians prepared for the dangers that may accompany the 2027 election?
The fears are real, and they should not be dismissed as political pessimism.
Nigeria is already dealing with insecurity, economic hardship, unemployment, ethnic suspicion, religious tension and declining public confidence in political institutions. Recent reporting has identified insecurity and economic hardship among the major concerns likely to shape the election, while the political opposition remains deeply fragmented.
The first and perhaps greatest fear is electoral violence.
Elections in Nigeria have too often been treated as wars in which political opponents are regarded as enemies rather than fellow citizens. Political thuggery, intimidation, vote buying, destruction of campaign offices and attacks on supporters have historically threatened the credibility of elections.
The danger becomes greater when political rhetoric is allowed to portray victory as a matter of life and death.
No political office is worth the blood of a Nigerian.
The second fear is insecurity.
Across different parts of the country, Nigerians continue to confront terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, communal violence and other forms of criminality. Recent reports indicate that kidnapping and wider insecurity remain significant national problems.
An election cannot be regarded as free and fair if citizens are too frightened to travel to their polling units, farmers cannot leave their communities, or entire communities are prevented from participating because of threats from armed groups.
The third fear is religious and ethnic polarization.
Nigeria’s diversity should be a source of strength, yet politicians have repeatedly found it convenient to exploit ethnic and religious identities for electoral advantage. The controversy surrounding religious balancing in presidential politics remains particularly sensitive, and religious leaders themselves have recently recognized the need to prevent hate speech and religious intolerance ahead of the 2027 election.
This is dangerous.
A presidential election should not become a referendum on whether one religion, region or ethnic group should dominate another.
Nigeria belongs equally to the Christian, Muslim and traditional religious communities. It belongs equally to the North and the South, the East and the West. It belongs to the Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Fulani, Ijaw, Kanuri, Tiv, Nupe and hundreds of other ethnic communities.
Nobody should be made to feel like a stranger in his own country because of the candidate he supports.
Another major concern is economic desperation.
For millions of Nigerians, politics is no longer an abstract contest of manifestos. It is connected directly to the price of food, transportation, rent, electricity, education and healthcare.
Recent reporting on the 2027 contest points to widespread frustration over living costs and insecurity.
An economically desperate population can become vulnerable to political manipulation. A bag of rice, a small amount of money or a promise of employment may become more attractive than a carefully written manifesto when families are struggling to survive.
This is why political parties must resist the temptation to exploit poverty as an electoral weapon.
The fifth fear is the credibility of the electoral process itself.
If citizens believe that their votes will not count, they may lose interest in voting. If political parties believe that the electoral process is predetermined, they may seek victory through methods outside democratic institutions.
That would be disastrous.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), security agencies, political parties, civil society organizations and the judiciary therefore have an enormous responsibility. Every stage of the electoral process must be transparent, predictable and credible.
Technology must work. Electoral officials must be properly trained. Results must be transmitted and announced according to the law. Complaints must be addressed through lawful institutions rather than through violence.
And, above all, political parties must learn to accept defeat when they lose.
Democracy cannot survive if politicians believe they are entitled to victory.
There is also the fear of political over-concentration of power.
Recent reports suggest that the ruling APC has strengthened its political position considerably, while the opposition remains divided.
A strong governing party is not necessarily a threat to democracy. But democracy becomes vulnerable when political competition is weakened to the point where citizens begin to believe that only one political structure can realistically win elections.
The opposition, therefore, has a responsibility beyond defeating the ruling party. It must present Nigerians with credible alternatives, coherent policies and responsible leadership.
Equally, the ruling party must understand that political dominance should never become institutional dominance.
Nigeria’s democracy needs strong institutions, not strong political godfathers.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE POLITICAL CLASS
As the 2027 election approaches, politicians must lower the temperature of political discourse.
They must stop describing fellow Nigerians as enemies simply because they belong to another party.
They must stop using ethnic and religious sentiments as campaign weapons.
They must stop making reckless promises.
They must stop mobilizing young Nigerians for violence while their own children remain safely away from the battlefield.
And they must understand one fundamental truth:
After the election, Nigeria will still remain.
The winner will need the citizens who voted against him. The loser will still have a role to play in building the country. Political parties will continue to exist. Communities will remain neighbours.
Therefore, the objective of the 2027 election should not merely be to produce a president.
It should be to strengthen Nigeria.
THE ROLE OF THE CITIZEN
Nigerians also have responsibilities.
Citizens must refuse to be recruited into political violence. They must scrutinize manifestos rather than personalities. They must ask candidates how they intend to address insecurity, unemployment, inflation, education, healthcare, length.

When the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) recently announced that it had uncovered 908 fake workers and recovered ₦942 million from fraudulent salary payments, many Nigerians were shocked by the figures. Yet, beneath the headline lies a more disturbing truth: the ghost worker syndrome is only one branch of a much larger tree of institutional fraud that has flourished within public administration for decades.

The revelation that the Nigeria Police Force alone accounted for 570 suspected fake workers raises fundamental questions about governance, accountability and the credibility of Nigeria’s public payroll system. If those entrusted with enforcing the law can become the biggest victims—or beneficiaries—of payroll manipulation, then the problem is clearly systemic rather than accidental.

This is not merely about salaries paid to nonexistent employees. It is about a culture that has normalized fake agencies, phantom projects, fictitious procurements, abandoned policies and investigations that often generate headlines but rarely produce lasting justice.

Nigeria’s battle against ghost workers did not begin today. Successive governments have repeatedly promised to sanitize the public service.

During the civil service reforms of the 1970s and 1980s, audit exercises exposed thousands of fictitious names on payrolls. Similar discoveries emerged under the Structural Adjustment era, while democratic administrations after 1999 conducted verification exercises almost every four years. The introduction of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) was celebrated as the technological solution that would permanently eliminate payroll fraud.

Yet the ghosts have refused to disappear.

The latest ICPC findings prove that technology alone cannot defeat corruption when human beings control the data entering the system. Every fake worker represents forged documentation, compromised officials, weak supervision and deliberate collaboration across multiple offices.

The frightening implication is that ghost workers do not create themselves; they are created, protected and sustained by real people.

From ghost workers to ghost government

Payroll fraud is only the visible part of a broader governance crisis. Nigeria has gradually developed an ecosystem of what may be described as ghost government.

These include:

Ghost agencies that exist largely on paper or duplicate the functions of existing institutions.

Ghost policies announced with impressive ceremonies but never implemented.

Ghost procurements where contracts are awarded, funds released, but projects never materialize.

Ghost committees established to solve national problems before quietly disappearing.

Ghost investigations that produce dramatic hearings without convictions or institutional reforms.

The result is the same in every case: public money disappears while public confidence evaporates.

Recent years have witnessed parliamentary probes into questionable intervention councils, duplicated agencies, inflated procurement contracts and abandoned infrastructure. In many instances, investigative panels generated enormous publicity only for their reports to gather dust on official shelves. The absence of consequences encourages repetition.

Why the police topping the list matters

That the police recorded the highest number of suspected fake workers deserves special attention.

The Nigeria Police is one of Africa’s largest security institutions, with personnel spread across every state and local government. Its size makes payroll management complex, but complexity cannot become an excuse for weak accountability.

A distorted payroll has serious security implications. Money diverted to fictitious officers is money unavailable for genuine recruitment, modern equipment, insurance, housing and welfare for serving personnel. At a time when officers complain about poor working conditions and inadequate logistics, discovering hundreds of fake names on the payroll is both economically damaging and morally indefensible.

The same applies to ministries responsible for defence, health, works, power and foreign affairs. These are institutions directly connected to national development. Every naira stolen through payroll fraud reduces the capacity to deliver essential services.

The politics of promises

Nigeria has also perfected another expensive habit: announcing policies that rarely leave the podium.

Governments frequently unveil ambitious programmes with attractive names, glossy documents and impressive budgets. Citizens celebrate the launch, but implementation becomes inconsistent, funding disappears or political priorities change.

Whether in employment schemes, industrial development, housing initiatives or infrastructure programmes, the pattern is familiar. A new administration often abandons its predecessor’s projects, establishes another committee and introduces another policy without evaluating the previous one.

The country therefore accumulates policies instead of results.

A government that cannot distinguish between genuine workers and ghost employees is equally capable of budgeting for ghost programmes.

Procurement without projects

Public procurement remains one of the weakest links in governance.

International experience shows that payroll fraud and procurement fraud often share identical characteristics: forged records, inflated figures, collusion among officials and weak oversight.

Nigeria has witnessed countless examples of contracts fully or substantially paid for roads never completed, hospitals without equipment, schools existing only in budget documents and security projects abandoned after funds had been released.

The financial losses extend beyond money. Communities remain underdeveloped while citizens lose faith in government institutions.

Transparent procurement is therefore inseparable from payroll integrity. Both require reliable databases, independent verification and public access to information.

Why investigations fail

One of Nigeria’s greatest institutional weaknesses is the tendency to mistake investigation for justice.

Each scandal follows a predictable cycle

*Allegation emerges.

*Committee or investigative panel is announced.

*Public hearings dominate the media.

*Interim reports generate political controversy.

*The matter quietly fades away.

This cycle has repeated itself across procurement scandals, pension fraud, subsidy controversies and payroll manipulation. When investigations do not end in prosecution, asset recovery and institutional reform, they become public relations exercises rather than accountability mechanisms.

The ICPC deserves credit for recovering funds, but recovery alone is insufficient. Nigerians deserve to know who inserted the fake names, who approved the payments, who supervised the payroll and what disciplinary actions will follow.

Without individual accountability, another 908 ghost workers will eventually replace the current ones.

We, at Disclosure Newspaper, commend the ICPC for the uncovering of the payroll fraud and recovery of ₦942 million.

However, the true victory will come only when fake workers disappear alongside fake agencies, phantom procurements, abandoned policies and cosmetic investigations.

A nation cannot build a prosperous future on invisible people and imaginary projects. The ghosts haunting Nigeria’s government must finally be laid to rest—not by another investigative committee, but by courage, transparency and uncompromising justice.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria’s electoral umpire, pinned August,19th, 2026 as the date the presidential election campaign whistle will sound.

It means that politicians can officially begin their politicking. Political rallies, campaign meetings, visits, shopping for endorsements, banners, posters, explosive interviews and even brazen actions can now begin to happen.
This is because INEC whistle must have been sounded.

But these activities have been going on under other guise and this calls for worry.

Long before now, inflammatory comments are being dished out.
Posters are being erected in strategic places, giant bill boards are standing in some places despite some governors’ intolerable disposition towards opponents erecting bill boards. Billboards, flyers and posters adorn and litter many buildings, roundabouts, fences and any available wall in the cities and remotest far-flung villages. These call attention to impending political battles among political parties and aspirants on the long queues for power.

To observers, politicians are exploiting legal loopholes to heat up the polity, knowing that they can easily evade sanctions by the electoral agency.

In September, Nigerians were taken aback by the early campaigns under the guise of party meetings, party visits, empowerment programmes, endorsement and other social events, including birthdays and funerals, which they elevated into campaign platform.

Concerns mounted over premature campaigns across the six geo-political zones, states, senatorial districts, constituencies and local governments because political parties are in a hurry, and aspirants are impatient and unwilling to wait for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s whistle before throwing their hats in the ring.

In spite of these obvious infractions, the Professor Amupitan-led INEC could not bark not to talk of biting.

At the DISCLOSURE News, we are worried that now that the whistle is about to be blown, who will call the wild politicians to order? Who will wield the big stick?

It is important therefore that we don’t return to the third republic politics when some political camps referred to themselves as ‘Brigades’ and ‘Forces’.

A 21st century Nigeria is supposed to evolve into decent, civil, transformational campaigns anchored on ideas, innovations and character.

We are horrified by the downward descent and slide our politics and politicians of the day have become.

INEC as the regulator of our political contest should be more proactive in setting out rules that can attract decent people and men of honour into the contest.

When men of character and honour are scared away by what looks like a ruffian activity, that’s the same way the people will be shortchanged and good governance will continue to elude the good people of Nigeria.

We call on the authorities concern to muster the will power and do the needful.

As the campaigns hot up, we charge every stakeholders to be alive to their civic duty; monitor, flag bad behavior, bad commentary, condemn inflammatory comments, call out the culprits.

Professor Joash Amupitan has an ample opportunity to put his name on the sands of time. He is leading the INEC at a time the commission needs to do noble work to regain its prestige that has been tainted by previous administration’s of the commission.

He is at liberty to initiate policies, ideas, embrace technologies, programmes, innovations that can add value to the electoral process, transparency credibility of our polls and history will be very kind to him.

We also use this opportunity to urge Nigerians to participate in the electoral process. Power belongs to the people and the people, so determined, will actually demonstrate this maxim.

The electoral umpire has always said it lacks the capacity to prosecute electoral offenders.We have always clamoured for electoral offences tribunal but in the interim, we shift our gaze to the regular courts, the police and the ministry of justice not to act mute in the face of provocations that can actually set the country on fire.

Prevention, it is said, is better than cure.