How Citizens Sustain the System They Criticise, By Lanre Ogundipe
If the persistence of familiar faces in Nigeria’s political space is troubling, it is not sustained by politicians alone. Systems do not reproduce themselves in isolation. They are enabled, reinforced, and, at times, defended by the very people who claim to be victims of them.
This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.
Because beyond the recycling of elite power lies a deeper, less acknowledged reality: the complicity of the electorate.
It is easy—often convenient—to assign the burden of national failure entirely to those in office. Governments are criticised, leaders are condemned, institutions are questioned. Yet, in a democracy, leadership does not emerge from a vacuum. It is produced, directly or indirectly, by the choices, compromises, and silences of citizens.
And those choices are not always neutral.
Nigeria’s electoral behaviour reveals a pattern that mirrors the political class it criticises. At every election cycle, dissatisfaction is widespread. There is anger at corruption, frustration with underperformance, and a persistent yearning for change. Yet, when the decisive moment arrives, the system often resets itself.
The same actors return.
The same structures endure.
The same disappointments repeat.
This contradiction cannot be explained solely by manipulation from above. It must also be examined from within society itself.
In many parts of the country, voting is not always an expression of careful evaluation. It is frequently shaped by a complex mix of pressures and incentives—economic vulnerability, ethnic affiliation, religious alignment, and familiarity. These forces are powerful, and in many cases understandable. But understanding them does not neutralise their consequences.
When identity outweighs competence, leadership reflects identity.
When inducement outweighs judgment, governance reflects inducement.
When familiarity outweighs scrutiny, renewal becomes elusive.
The system does not operate in abstraction. It responds to behaviour.
And behaviour, over time, becomes culture.
There is also the issue of transactional voting—a phenomenon that has moved from the margins to the mainstream of Nigeria’s electoral process. What was once discreet has, in many instances, become normalised. Votes are influenced not only by persuasion but by immediate, tangible benefit.
This creates a dangerous inversion of democracy.
Instead of citizens holding leaders accountable, leaders begin to price citizens.
Instead of governance being a contract, it becomes a transaction.
Instead of elections being a mandate, they become an exchange.
In such a system, long-term national interest struggles to compete with short-term personal gain.
The consequences are not theoretical.
When votes are traded, accountability is weakened. A leader who secures power through inducement is less likely to feel bound by performance. The relationship between voter and officeholder shifts—from expectation to accommodation.
And once that shift occurs, the foundation of democratic responsibility begins to erode.
Complicity also manifests in the form of selective outrage.
Nigerians are expressive. Public reaction to political events is often swift and intense. Social commentary is vibrant. Criticism is abundant. But consistency is uneven.
Some actions provoke widespread condemnation. Others are rationalised, excused, or ignored—depending on who is involved, where they come from, or what interests they represent.
This inconsistency fragments public pressure.
It allows political actors to navigate criticism strategically, confident that outrage is often temporary and unevenly applied. What shocks today may be forgotten tomorrow. What is condemned in one context may be defended in another.
In this environment, accountability becomes negotiable.
There is also the matter of political memory—or the lack of it.
Nigeria suffers not from absence of history, but from inconsistent engagement with it. Events that should shape political judgment are often overshadowed by immediate concerns. Past actions are detached from present evaluation. Figures once criticised are reintroduced without sustained interrogation.
This creates space for reinvention without reflection.
And where reflection is absent, patterns repeat.
Beyond elections, complicity takes a quieter but equally significant form: civic disengagement.
Democracy is not an event; it is a process. It requires continuous involvement—questioning, monitoring, demanding, and participating. Yet, outside election cycles, public engagement often declines. Attention shifts. Pressure dissipates.
In that vacuum, governance proceeds with minimal resistance.
Oversight weakens.
Scrutiny softens.
Expectations fade.
And systems that are not consistently challenged rarely reform themselves.
It is within this context that the relationship between leadership and followership becomes clearer. They are not separate forces; they are interconnected. Leadership reflects, to a significant degree, the environment from which it emerges.
A political class that operates transactionally does so, in part, because transactional behaviour has proven effective. A system that resists renewal does so because renewal is not consistently demanded.
This is the uncomfortable symmetry.
The electorate, while often disadvantaged, is not entirely powerless. Within constraints, choices are still made. Patterns are still formed. Signals are still sent.
And those signals shape outcomes.
None of this absolves the political class of responsibility. The imbalance of power remains significant. Structural inequalities—poverty, access to information, institutional weakness—limit the range of choices available to many Nigerians.
But limitation does not eliminate influence.
Even within constraint, there is agency.
Even within difficulty, there is direction.
And without acknowledging that agency, the conversation about reform remains incomplete.
The deeper challenge, therefore, is not only political—it is cultural.
It requires a shift in orientation:
From immediate benefit to long-term consequence
From identity-based alignment to performance-based evaluation
From episodic reaction to sustained engagement
It also requires a redefinition of political participation—not as a periodic obligation, but as a continuous responsibility.
Because the system that is criticised today is, in many ways, the system that has been collectively tolerated.
And tolerance, over time, becomes endorsement.
This is not a comfortable conclusion. It is not meant to be. But it is necessary.
Because a nation cannot fundamentally transform its leadership outcomes without confronting the behaviour that sustains them.
The recycling of power at the top is reinforced by repetition at the base.
And until that relationship changes, the expectation of different results from the same patterns will remain just that—an expectation.
Ogundipe, Public Affairs Analyst, Former President Nigeria and Africa Union of Journalists, writes from Abuja
