In 1960, Nigeria took charge of its own affairs, sending its colonial masters packing. When the British left, they essentially handed over a complex machine we had never been taught to drive, and so, our learning process began.
They say practice makes perfect, but Nigeria’s rehearsal was violently and repeatedly disrupted by military coups until 1999, when we finally had our longest, most stable stretch of democratic practice.
But in 2023, that practice session was disrupted yet again. Only this time, the disruption wasn’t wearing a military uniform but an agbada; it came from a civilian administration—the administration of Bola Tinubu.
This is how Nigeria’s democracy died in 2023.
Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy is perhaps the most quoted: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Because of this popular definition, the most easily understood aspect of democracy for most people is choice. In other words, we get to vote for our leaders. Voting is a massive pillar of democracy. But it is certainly not the only one.
True democracy also relies on vital concepts like the separation of powers, free speech, freedom of the press, and strict respect for the rule of law. Proper democratic practice requires all these pillars to function together, not just focus entirely on elections. Nigeria has historically focused on the voting aspect of democracy, and famously struggled in the non-voting areas, but we have never had it quite this bad. Since 2023, we have watched these foundational pillars be completely demolished.
If you want to destroy a democracy, one of the first pillars to attack is the Separation of Powers. It is the fundamental principle that a government must be divided into independent arms and tiers to prevent absolute control.
The arms represent the functional divisions of power:
The tiers represent the geographical levels of governance:
In an ideal democracy, each arm and tier operates within its own constitutional boundaries, completely free from outside interference. This structural wall ensures they act as vital checks and balances on one another, keeping excessive power in check.
In reality, however, the Tinubu administration has embarked on the grandest—or at least the most successful—campaign of state capture Nigeria has ever witnessed.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) started the 10th Assembly with 59 out of 109 senators, and 162 out of 360 seats in the House of Representatives. For a ruling party, that is a perfectly respectable majority.
But the party spent the next three years aggressively recruiting opposition legislators to dump the parties that got them elected and switch to the APC. By March 2026, the APC had secured 84 Senate seats and 231 House seats. That sits well above the two-thirds supermajority needed to ruthlessly force through legislation.
To put it simply: any law Tinubu wants passed will be passed. Even if every single opposition lawmaker votes against an executive bill, the APC lawmakers vastly outnumber them. They will always win the vote in the chamber. You might need to read that twice.
Even before the APC secured this massive supermajority, the National Assembly had already proved to be almost entirely obedient to the president. Examples include rubber-stamping his move to change the national anthem, or their compliance when he suspended the democratically elected state government in Rivers State in 2025.
Whenever Tinubu needs something pushed through, he can confidently count on his yes-men at the National Assembly, led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, to get it done. The absolute surrender of the legislature’s constitutional oversight powers over the executive is perfectly embodied by Akpabio himself.
This is a man who actively sings “On Your Mandate” when Tinubu enters the senate chamber, and has literally declared that “Tinubu is on the throne.”
We are not even kidding. It is genuinely that bad. The Senate President is invoking monarch status on the President. It’s Akpabio’s job to keep Tinubu in check, yet he calls him a king. If that doesn’t tell you we’re in trouble, nothing will.
Okay, so the federal lawmakers bow to “king Tinubu”. But what about the state governments? Surely, democratically elected governors—voted in by their own people—can stand up to federal bullying, right? You probably already know exactly where this is going.
The APC finished the 2023 elections with 21 governors out of the 36 states. But the campaign to take over the country has worked so well that the APC now controls a staggering 31 governors.
This is where things get ugly. The way the APC and Tinubu have captured these governors shows a very brutal, undemocratic side to how they run the country.
Governors like Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State and Ademola Adeleke of Osun State have openly accused the federal government of holding back money meant for their states to force them to join the APC. Sadly, the pressure worked. Just weeks after complaining that Abuja withheld up to ₦500 billion in palliative funds from Zamfara, Lawal gave up and moved to the APC in March 2026.
In Bauchi State, Governor Bala Mohammed has also accused the federal government of using agencies like the EFCC to harass him and his cabinet into switching parties.
Tinubu has also shown a willingness to unconstitutionally remove elected officials from their posts. In March 2025, Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State, deployed the military, and suspended the elected state government for 6 months.
And as you probably guessed, the rubber-stamp lawmakers in the National Assembly quickly approved it. Three months after the suspension ended, Governor Sim Fubara officially crossed over to the APC. In May 2025, we’d learn from Nyesom Wike that Fubara’s suspension was lifted following an agreement overseen by Tinubu.
Democratically elected state governors shouldn’t have to switch to the President’s party just to get the money meant for their people, or to protect themselves from being locked out of their office, but here we are.
But Tinubu doesn’t just expect these captured governors to run their states according to his will. No, he likes to parade them like trophies. This is most obvious in the bizarre airport ritual that has become a regular tradition under this administration.
Governors who should be busy managing their own states constantly leave their offices to travel to Abuja just to wave Tinubu goodbye whenever he flies out of the country. Others fly across the world with him just to line up on the tarmac and shake his hand the moment he steps off the presidential jet, acting like a glorified welcoming committee.
We have even seen photographs of sitting, elected governors literally greeting Tinubu on their knees.
It is incredibly clear that this current crop of governors does not understand the basic rules of democracy or the independence that comes with their positions. They simply do not respect the weight and importance of their own offices.
But the bigger question is: do we, as Nigerians, truly realise just how messed up all of this actually is?
Since the return to democracy in 1999, Nigeria has gone through three major leadership eras before Tinubu:
While every single one of these past leaders had their flaws and definitely threw their weight around, the presidency was never as dangerously strong as it is right now. None of them managed to completely swallow up the rest of the government the way Tinubu has.
During the Obasanjo years, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) held almost as much numerical power as the APC does today. They grew from 59 senators, 206 representatives, and 21 governors in Obasanjo’s first term to a massive 73 senators, 223 representatives, and 27 governors in his second term.
But being members of the president’s party did not turn these politicians into his stooges. The Senate constantly fought Obasanjo, actively revolting against executive control by repeatedly impeaching the Senate Presidents he tried to handpick. In total, the friction was so intense that the upper chamber went through five different Senate Presidents in just eight years. They even tried to impeach Obasanjo as president in 2002 over security issues. God when.
The defining moment of this legislative independence came in 2006, when Obasanjo tried to push through a constitutional amendment bill to elongate his political career and secure a third term in office. Despite the PDP holding a commanding majority in the chamber, lawmakers looked the old military general in the eye and threw the bill out, permanently killing his dream of an extended presidency.
Today, the contrast is stark. There is not a single political analyst in Nigeria worth their salt who would tell you they are 100 per cent sure the current National Assembly would say no if Tinubu asked for the same thing.
It’s ironic that Tinubu, in his time as governor, operated democratically and was not a pushover.
In the early 2000s, Tinubu was the Governor of Lagos State. When he created new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) without federal approval, President Obasanjo got angry and completely cut off Lagos State’s federal allocation funds.
So, what did Tinubu do? Did he run to join the ruling PDP? Did he travel to Abuja to beg Obasanjo on his knees? Absolutely not. He stood his ground, fought the presidency all the way to the Supreme Court, and won.
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