NEWS
Peace on Paper, Peril in Practice: Why 2027’s Elections Remain at Risk
By Dakuku Peterside
There is something reassuring about the ritual of political rivals gathering beneath the same roof and signing their names to a common promise of peace. In a country where elections have too often been accompanied by intimidation, inflammatory rhetoric and violence, the symbolism matters.
It says that political competition need not become warfare; that opponents are adversaries, not enemies; and that the pursuit of power must remain subordinate to the survival of the republic.That is why the National Peace Accord signed in Abuja on August 18, 2026, deserves to be welcomed.
Facilitated by the National Peace Committee in partnership with The Kukah Centre, it commits political actors to peaceful, credible, free, and fair elections, rejects violence and hate speech, and calls for impartiality from the electoral commission and professionalism from security agencies.But Nigeria must be careful not to mistake a declaration of good intentions for an architecture of credible elections.
A peace accord can moderate political behaviour, establish a moral baseline and give citizens a standard by which to judge candidates. What it cannot do is neutralise structural inequalities embedded in the electoral environment.
The greatest threat to the next general election may be quieter than spectacular fraud or election-day violence: the gradual tilting of the political field before voters reach polling units.
An opposition rally denied access to a stadium. A campaign permit delayed without explanation. Billboard charges raised beyond reasonable reach. State-owned media giving disproportionate attention to incumbents. Government events becoming indistinguishable from campaign appearances. Security regulations applied rigorously to one political group and indulgently to another.
Each incident may appear administrative. Taken together, they can alter the character of an election.
This is the danger of electoral tilting: democracy may preserve the rituals of competition while weakening substantive equality. Candidates remain on the ballot, campaigns continue and votes are counted, yet the conditions under which those votes are sought may already be distorted.
The lesson is uncomfortable but essential: elections are not made fair on Election Day alone.
It begins with who may campaign freely, access public facilities, receive reasonable media exposure and advertise without arbitrary obstruction—and whether the government respects the boundary between public office and partisan advantage.
Once participation becomes dependent on administrative discretion, democracy risks becoming a permissioned economy in which those who control the state also influence the conditions under which they are challenged.
A level ballot cannot fully compensate for an uneven field.
The same concern applies to the institution entrusted with managing elections. INEC cannot be expected to command public confidence merely because the Constitution describes it as independent. Independence must be visible in its finances, operations, technology, staffing, and decision-making.
Financial dependence creates vulnerability. Delayed funding can become delayed logistics. Delayed logistics can become disenfranchisement. Administrative weakness may achieve what crude manipulation once required.
The legal framework matters just as much.
Nigeria entered the post-2023 electoral cycle with unresolved questions about electronic transmission, collation and the evidentiary burden on petitioners challenging disputed outcomes. Where the law permits uncertainty between polling-unit results, electronic records and subsequent collation, mistrust grows.
When petitions are extraordinarily difficult to prove because litigants must assemble vast volumes of polling-unit documents and technological evidence, citizens may wonder whether legal remedies are genuinely accessible or merely theoretical.
This is why electoral reform cannot stop at purchasing machines.
Technology can strengthen elections, but technology does not abolish politics.
BVAS and IReV are important efforts to improve accreditation and results transparency. Yet technology is only as credible as the rules, safeguards and audit trails surrounding it. Systems can fail, networks disappear and records be contested. Disinformation can exploit technical uncertainty faster than official explanations can restore confidence.
Artificial intelligence has lowered the cost of convincing falsehoods. Deepfakes, fabricated audio, manipulated images and coordinated disinformation can sweep through political communities before fact-checkers or regulators respond. Digital campaigns can seek not merely to persuade voters, but to confuse, provoke or convince them that voting is pointless.
In such an environment, transparency is no longer an administrative virtue. It is a democratic necessity.
Election technology must therefore be resilient, independently auditable and supported by clear legal rules. Procedures for electronic transmission should not remain open to endless interpretation. Technology must reduce uncertainty, not become another arena in which uncertainty is weaponised.
Security agencies face an equally important test.
The Peace Accord properly asks candidates to restrain their supporters. But restraint loses moral force if enforcement itself becomes selective.
When one rally receives protection while another faces disruption; when organisers fear harassment; or when journalists, donors and campaign workers believe association with certain candidates carries personal risk, democratic space contracts.
A citizen who fears attending a rally may soon fear displaying a poster. Communities may stop reporting intimidation; volunteers and donors may withdraw; journalists may self-censor. Participation narrows without any formal suspension of democratic rights.
That is how democracies can weaken while their institutions remain outwardly intact.
Security neutrality must therefore be enforceable, not ceremonial. Rules of engagement during campaigns and elections should be publicly known. Complaints must be independently monitored. Violations should attract consequences. No commander should be permitted to convert state coercive power into partisan advantage.
Then there is the more familiar problem of incumbency.
Office naturally confers visibility, access to information, public recognition and a record to showcase. These advantages become dangerous when the line between governing and campaigning disappears.
Public advertising may begin to resemble partisan propaganda. Government programmes may be launched to maximise electoral impact. Official travel can become political mobilisation. Public procurement and social interventions may be influenced by campaign timing. State infrastructure can quietly become campaign infrastructure.
The answer is not to freeze government during election season, but to separate legitimate governance from partisan exploitation.
Nigeria needs an enforceable incumbency code because public office must never confer ownership of public resources.
The same discipline is required in political speech.
Hate speech is often dismissed as the excess of heated campaigning. That is a mistake. In a country where political identities frequently intersect with ethnicity, religion and region, reckless rhetoric can turn ordinary political competition into an existential confrontation.
Once voters are persuaded that an election is not merely about policies or competence but about the survival of their community, electoral defeat becomes harder to accept, and political compromise becomes more difficult.
The Peace Accord condemns hate speech. But presidential signatures cannot control thousands of candidates, party officials, influencers, and supporters across the federation. Its principles must therefore travel downwards—from national party leadership to states, local governments, wards, and communities.
Political parties must discipline their own members. Technology companies must take coordinated manipulation seriously. Civil society, religious institutions, traditional leaders, youth organisations, and the media must strengthen early-warning mechanisms to identify and defuse dangerous rhetoric before it acquires a life of its own.
Failure will resonate far beyond the declaration of a winner.
Repeatedly tilted elections deepen regional suspicion, increase alienation and weaken attachment to constitutional processes. Electoral uncertainty raises political risk, discourages investment and complicates economic planning. A society that repeatedly doubts its elections may eventually doubt democracy itself.
Nigeria’s democratic standing has never depended simply on its capacity to organise elections. As one of Africa’s largest democracies, it carries a heavier responsibility: to demonstrate that political competition can be meaningful, that rules can constrain power, and that electoral legitimacy can survive intense rivalry.
The months ahead should therefore be devoted not merely to election preparation but to building an architecture of electoral fairness.
INEC should make preparedness more visible through transparent reporting on logistics, technology, and election-related compliance. Governments should guarantee equal access to public facilities and state-owned media while separating official functions from partisan campaigning.
Security agencies should publish neutrality protocols and submit election-related conduct to credible oversight. Political parties should appoint compliance officers and accept responsibility for supporters who violate agreed standards. Civil society and the media should systematically monitor venue access, airtime, security conduct, campaign financing, and digital integrity, and publish regular election-readiness scorecards for citizens.
None of this diminishes the Peace Accord.
It gives it meaning.
Democracies need rituals. Handshakes matter. Signatures matter. Public promises matter. They express the standards a society expects its leaders to observe.
But the deeper lesson of Nigerian electoral history is that peace cannot rest on goodwill alone.
A peaceful election is not necessarily a credible election. There may be no gunshots at polling stations and yet citizens may still conclude that the field was unfair. Ballots may be accurately counted, and yet confidence may remain weak because the conditions preceding the vote were unequal.
Electoral legitimacy is cumulative.
It is built from the confidence that candidates were free to compete, citizens were free to choose, institutions acted independently, security agencies remained neutral, technology worked transparently, and the same rules applied regardless of who held power.
That is the real test before Nigeria in 2027.
Dakuku Peterside is the author of Leading in a Storm and Beneath the Surface.
By David Torough, Abuja
The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) has commenced the 2026 Rapid Response 3 (RR3) Crisis Response Exercise in Asaba, Delta State, marking the first time Nigeria’s national multi-agency crisis simulation is being conducted outside the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The five-day exercise, which began on Monday, September 7, and is scheduled to end on Friday, September 11, brings together relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), security and emergency response organisations, strategic partners and other stakeholders to test and strengthen the country’s preparedness for complex emergencies and security-related incidents.
The Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation is among the key partners participating in the exercise.
Speaking at the opening ceremony in Asaba, Director of the Presidential Command and Control Centre, ONSA, and Director of the exercise, Rear Admiral Ayo-Vaughan, said RR3 was designed to evaluate existing crisis-response plans, strengthen inter-agency coordination and identify gaps requiring improvement.
According to him, Rapid Response 3 is the codename for the 2026 crisis-response exercise organised by ONSA and represents the seventh national crisis-response simulation conducted by the agency.
He noted that the previous six exercises were held in Abuja, while the decision to hold the 2026 edition in Delta State was intended to test national crisis-response arrangements in a sub-national environment.
The full-scale exercise will involve two simulated crisis scenarios conducted sequentially at the Asaba International Airport and along the Benin-Asaba Expressway.
Participants will operate under the Gold, Silver and Bronze command structure established by the National Crisis Management Doctrine, representing the strategic, operational and tactical levels of coordination.
The exercise will also assess communication and information-sharing systems, command and control arrangements, operational procedures and the ability of participating agencies to respond effectively to simulated emergencies.
The opening ceremony was attended by the Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Kingsley Eze Emu, alongside senior government officials, security and emergency response commanders, heads of MDAs, strategic partners and members of the media.
ONSA assured residents that the exercise is a controlled simulation and does not represent an actual emergency or security incident.
The agency warned, however, that residents may witness increased movements of security personnel, vehicles and emergency response teams around designated areas during the exercise. It urged the public not to panic or mistake the activities for a real emergency.
Rear Admiral Ayo-Vaughan also called on the media to rely only on verified information in reporting the exercise and avoid spreading unconfirmed reports that could cause unnecessary public alarm.
He said the lessons and observations from the exercise would be documented and used to strengthen Nigeria’s national crisis-management architecture and improve future multi-agency responses to complex emergencies.
By David Torough, Abuja
The Federal Government has pledged its support for the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) to harness Nigeria’s Orange Economy as a driver of job creation, entrepreneurship, economic diversification and sustainable development.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, made the commitment on Tuesday in Abuja when the Director-General of NIPSS, Prof.
Ayo Omotayo, led a delegation from the institute on a courtesy visit.The meeting focused on the research being undertaken by participants of NIPSS Senior Executive Course 48 and plans for a National Summit and Exhibition on the Orange Economy.
Idris commended NIPSS for choosing the creative economy as the focus of its research, describing the sector as a significant opportunity to diversify Nigeria’s economy, create jobs for young people and promote sustainable prosperity.
“I want to commend NIPSS for this initiative of examining the Orange Economy and entrepreneurship for sustainable development,” the minister said.
He assured the delegation that the Ministry and its agencies would support both the research and the proposed summit. According to him, effective communication would be essential to ensuring that Nigerians and the international community understand the opportunities available in the creative economy.
“This Ministry is essentially about taking information to the public and taking it back from the public. It is a two-way thing,” Idris said.
The minister also highlighted the role of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), which has a nationwide presence, in gathering feedback on the views, needs and aspirations of Nigerians at the grassroots.
He said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration remained committed to listening to citizens and adjusting policies and programmes where necessary in the national interest.
“The first question the President asks whenever I sit with him is: ‘What are Nigerians saying?’” Idris said.
To strengthen coordination, the minister said the Ministry would designate an official to work with NIPSS as preparations for the proposed summit advance.
Earlier, Omotayo said NIPSS was seeking the Ministry’s partnership in its research and the planned national summit, which is expected to examine how the Orange Economy can contribute to Nigeria’s economic transformation and the administration’s ambition of building a trillion-dollar economy.
He said participants in Senior Executive Course 48 had conducted research visits across Nigeria and to several countries to examine how creative industries are being developed and leveraged for economic growth.
The proposed summit, he added, would bring together government representatives, creatives, entrepreneurs, investors and other stakeholders to explore opportunities across the sector.
“The Orange Economy is a very huge sector. We have identified about 48 subdivisions, and we believe the summit will bring out the potentials in every sector,” Omotayo said.
According to the NIPSS Director-General, Nigeria’s growing creative and digital industries have considerable potential to tackle youth unemployment while creating new avenues for entrepreneurship, investment and wealth creation.
Idris reaffirmed the Ministry’s commitment to working with NIPSS and other strategic institutions to turn research and policy ideas into practical opportunities for Nigerians, particularly young people, while strengthening the country’s position in the global creative economy.
The meeting was attended by senior government officials and representatives of NIPSS and the private sector, including Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, Dr. Binyerem C. Ukaire; former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; and other officials.
NEWS
Akpodo Community Appreciates Lydia Memorial Hospital for Medical Outreach, Seeks Road Intervention
By David Torough, Abuja
The Akpodo Community has paid a thank-you visit to the management and staff of Lydia Memorial Hospital, Ugbokolo, in appreciation of a recent medical outreach organised to provide healthcare services to residents of the community.
The delegation, led by the Community Chief, His Royal Highness Chief Mark Baron Onah, also expressed appreciation to the Linda Moro Memorial Foundation and other partners and individuals who supported the outreach.
Speaking during the visit, Chief Onah commended Lydia Memorial Hospital for bringing medical services to the community despite the difficult road conditions.
He described the outreach as a significant humanitarian intervention, particularly at a time when many families are facing economic hardship.
“What baffles me most was that, even when there was no way to our community, you created a way where there was no way, and made sure my people benefited from the outreach,” the traditional ruler said.
Chief Onah said the initiative went beyond healthcare delivery, describing it as a demonstration of compassion, solidarity and concern for the wellbeing of people in underserved communities.
He called on other organisations, philanthropists and well-meaning individuals to emulate Lydia Memorial Hospital by supporting initiatives aimed at improving access to essential services in rural communities.
The community’s Woman Leader, Mrs Kate Onah, also expressed gratitude to the hospital and the Linda Moro Memorial Foundation for what she described as a memorable and impactful outreach.
She commended the organisations for combining healthcare delivery with community empowerment and bringing professional medical attention closer to residents who often face difficulties accessing healthcare.
Responding on behalf of the hospital’s nursing department, the Head of Nursing Department, ACNO Samuel Ajuma, thanked the delegation for returning to the hospital to formally express its appreciation.
Ajuma said the visit demonstrated the community’s acceptance of the outreach and recognition of the efforts of the hospital and foundation.
He added that the initiative was also aimed at strengthening relationships between healthcare providers and the communities they serve.
The Medical Director of Lydia Memorial Hospital, Dr Mark A. C. Ogbodo, used the occasion to draw attention to the poor condition of roads linking Akpodo with neighbouring communities and major markets.
Ogbodo said the deplorable roads were hindering the community’s social and economic development, particularly affecting farmers who rely on the routes to transport agricultural produce to markets.
He appealed to the local, state and federal governments, as well as philanthropists, corporate organisations and other stakeholders, to urgently intervene by grading and improving the roads.
According to him, better roads would improve access to healthcare and other essential services while also helping farmers transport their produce to markets, increase household incomes and strengthen the local economy.
The Linda Moro Memorial Foundation reaffirmed its commitment to humanitarian service, saying the medical outreach and community empowerment initiatives were inspired by the desire to make a meaningful difference in the lives of vulnerable people.
The foundation said its activities were also intended to preserve the legacy of its late matriarch, Mrs Linda Moro, whose memory continues to inspire acts of compassion, service and community development.
The visit ended with both Akpodo Community and the hospital reaffirming their commitment to sustaining their relationship and exploring further opportunities to improve the wellbeing of people in rural and underserved communities.
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