Nigeria’s Parties Are Election Machines, Not Engines Of Governance

By NJORIGE LYNUS

A Crisis of Manifestos

IN today’s Nigeria, political manifestos have become glossy pamphlets for campaigns rather than binding social contracts with the people. Civil society groups, political scientists, and party leaders agree: the collapse of manifesto-driven governance is at the heart of Nigeria’s democratic dysfunction. Governors, once bound by party ideology, now rule by personal preference, leaving citizens unsure what their parties truly stand for.

The Lost Ideological Compass

Contrast this with the Second Republic (1979–1983), when parties like the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) were defined by clear ideologies. UPN governors pursued four cardinal programmes—free education, free healthcare, rural development, and full employment—uniformly across states. Citizens voted knowing exactly what to expect. Today, however, parties are mere vehicles to win elections, easily abandoned once victory is secured.

Governors as Party Owners

Since 1999, Nigerian politics has been captured by presidents and governors, who bend parties to their will. Internal democracy is weak, defection is rampant, and party financing depends on wealthy individuals rather than citizens. As former IPAC chairman Peter Ameh put it: “Governors now own the party, not the other way around.” This inversion of party supremacy explains why policy discontinuity and abandoned projects are the rule, not the exception.

Civil Society’s Alarm

Civil society organisations warn that this personality-driven governance is unsustainable. From CISLAC to GRACO, advocates stress that parties must reconnect with grassroots needs, enforce manifestos, and end the culture of executive dominance. Without ideological discipline, Nigeria will continue to drift from one administration’s whims to another’s vanity projects, with no coherent vision of national development.

Pathways to Reform

Analysts and party leaders propose solutions:

• Strengthen internal democracy to make parties people-owned rather than governor-controlled.

• Reinstate public funding to reduce dependence on godfathers.

• Enforce manifesto discipline so governors cannot abandon collective party programmes.

• Curb defections to preserve ideological integrity.

Editorial Position

Nigeria cannot build a functional democracy on parties that exist only to contest elections. The lesson from the Second Republic is clear: ideology matters. Manifestos matter. When parties stand for something greater than winning power, governance becomes consistent, accountable, and people-focused.

Until political parties reclaim their ideological backbone, Nigerians will remain trapped in a cycle of personality politics—where elections change leaders, but never governance itself.