Every election offers a nation an opportunity to renew its democratic covenant. But one question survives every election, outlives every administration and increasingly defines the predicament of democratic governance: what happens when the institutions through which citizens choose their leaders fail to sustain a meaningful relationship between political authority and the people in whose name it is exercised?
For Nigeria, approaching nationwide elections in January 2027, this question is neither abstract nor academic. Since the restoration of civilian government in 1999, the country has sustained an uninterrupted constitutional order and witnessed transfers of presidential power. These are substantial achievements in a country repeatedly interrupted by military intervention.
But the survival of democratic government has not settled the deeper question of democratic legitimacy.
It is this distinction that gives Daron Acemoglu’s new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, its extraordinary contemporary relevance. Acemoglu, the Nobel Prize-winning economist whose scholarship has transformed our understanding of institutions and development, examines a paradox confronting established democracies. How did political systems become vulnerable to distrust and challenges to their foundational principles? Why have institutions that once commanded broad allegiance struggled to retain it? And what must change if liberal democracy is to recover its capacity to command obedience and conviction?
Acemoglu’s explanation reaches beyond familiar accounts of democratic decline. Authoritarian ambition and institutional manipulation matter, but they do not exhaust the problem. His deeper argument concerns the erosion of the economic and social foundations upon which democratic legitimacy historically rested. In the industrial democracies of the twentieth century, rising living standards helped create constituencies with a material stake in the political order.
Democracy was sustained not simply by constitutions and elections, but by social relationships that gave substantial sections of the population a credible expectation of progress. As those relationships weakened, the political settlement supporting liberal democracy became increasingly fragile.
The argument challenges the assumption that democracy, once constitutionally established, becomes self-sustaining. It does not. Elections can confer authority without generating trust. Economic growth can coexist with insecurity and exclusion. Political institutions can remain formally intact while the social foundations of their legitimacy deteriorate.
But Nigeria’s encounter with Acemoglu must begin with a fundamental historical distinction. The democratic crisis he principally examines is rooted in the weakening of arrangements that once sustained substantial constituencies for liberal democracy. Nigeria’s predicament is different and, in certain respects, more structurally demanding. Its democratic institutions have developed within a political economy in which the foundations of broad-based productive prosperity remain uneven.
Where established industrial democracies confront the erosion of an earlier settlement, Nigeria confronts the unfinished construction of one.
The significance extends beyond historical chronology. Since 1999, Nigeria has maintained constitutional continuity and witnessed changes in political leadership. Yet these changes have not consistently produced corresponding transformations in the public institutions.
Political competition has frequently proved more effective at determining who controls governmental institutions than at changing how those institutions function.
At the heart of the problem lies a political economy in which access to public authority can confer substantial influence over the allocation of resources and economic opportunities. Such arrangements may reward political loyalty more readily than the patient construction of capable institutions. Elections can consequently redistribute political authority without fundamentally changing the incentives governing its exercise.
This helps explain why the language of reform so frequently exceeds the institutional transformation that follows it. The existence of a policy becomes evidence of reform; the inauguration of projects becomes proof of sustained public benefit. Yet institutions are transformed not by the frequency of announcements but by changes in capabilities, procedures and accountability that survive the administrations introducing them.
The difficulty is compounded by Nigeria’s economic structure. In the industrial democracies central to Acemoglu’s historical account, expanding wage employment helped create constituencies capable of bargaining collectively. Nigeria’s extensive informal economy produces a different relationship between citizens, markets and the state. Millions pursue livelihoods through small enterprises and self-employment, often without the institutional access associated with formal employment.
Their economic vulnerability does not diminish their political rights, but it complicates the sustained collective action through which those rights can be defended.
A further paradox emerges. Citizens may participate enthusiastically in electoral politics while possessing comparatively limited influence over the administrative and economic decisions shaping their daily circumstances. Political participation becomes concentrated around moments when authority is contested rather than embedded in continuous mechanisms through which authority is scrutinised.
This condition is particularly consequential because democratic legitimacy cannot be sustained indefinitely through periodic mobilisation alone. Citizens require credible avenues through which grievances can be heard, and institutional failures corrected. Where such mechanisms are unreliable, political participation may increasingly depend on personal connections and access to influential patrons. What appears to be a cultural preference for patronage may instead reflect a rational adaptation to institutions that citizens cannot consistently rely upon.
Acemoglu’s philosophical conception of liberalism offers an important corrective. At its strongest, liberalism is not merely freedom from government interference. It also entails protection against arbitrary power exercised by public authorities or powerful private interests. This distinction matters enormously where constitutional equality coexists with unequal practical influence.
The distinction is between rights formally possessed and freedoms effectively exercised. It does not diminish constitutional guarantees; it explains why those guarantees require institutions capable of enforcing them. Nor does it suggest that citizenship must be earned through economic productivity. Rights are not rewards for prosperity. They belong equally to citizens who are unable to exercise economic influence.
Federalism introduces another dimension. Nigeria’s constitutional structure distributes authority across federal, state and local institutions. In principle, proximity can make public institutions more accessible and responsive. In practice, proximity guarantees neither competence nor accountability. The democratic value of federalism therefore depends not simply on where authority resides, but on how effectively institutions perform and how rigorously citizens can scrutinise them.
The resulting problem is not merely administrative. It is profoundly political. When institutions cannot reliably establish responsibility, citizens struggle to distinguish unavoidable constraints from avoidable failures. Accountability becomes difficult when authority is fragmented and information inaccessible. The social contract weakens because the relationship between public commitments and enforceable obligations becomes uncertain.
There is, however, a danger in treating inadequate public performance as an argument against democracy itself. The failures of administrations do not establish that constitutional government is inherently incapable of delivering development. Nor should dissatisfaction with elections be confused with rejection of democratic principles. Indeed, the freedom to criticise government is itself among democracy’s most valuable achievements.
This is where the Nigerian experience both confirms and extends Acemoglu’s argument. He demonstrates why democracy requires social constituencies possessing a meaningful stake in its survival. Nigeria reveals how difficult such constituencies can be to sustain when institutional access is unequal and political accountability intermittent. But economic inclusion cannot independently resolve the democratic problem. Prosperity must be accompanied by institutions capable of ensuring that public authority remains answerable to citizens.
Nigeria’s democratic discourse too frequently separates these requirements into competing arguments. One places overwhelming emphasis on elections, as though credible voting procedures would automatically resolve the wider crisis of governance. Another prioritises economic performance, implying that sufficiently impressive developmental achievements can compensate for deficiencies in accountability. Both approaches contain important truths but overlook essential relationships. Neither liberty without effective institutions nor administrative effectiveness without liberty constitutes a complete democratic settlement.
The approaching elections should therefore be understood within a larger institutional horizon. Their significance cannot be reduced to the identity of those who obtain office. The enduring questions concern whether electoral competition is credible, and public institutions made more accountable. Are political commitments sufficiently specific to permit subsequent scrutiny? Can citizens challenge unlawful decisions without intimidation? Can communities obtain reliable information about the resources allocated and results achieved in their name?
These are not secondary considerations but are among the conditions through which development becomes legitimate. A capable state requires authority to coordinate institutions, enforce laws and pursue collective purposes. A democratic state requires that authority for meaningful public participation. Nigeria’s challenge is not to choose between these requirements but to develop institutions capable of sustaining both.
The implications reach beyond the next electoral cycle. Institutional renewal requires arrangements that survive individual officeholders: transparent public decisions, enforceable accountability and clearer responsibility for public outcomes. These are not substitutes for political competition. They are among the conditions that allow political competition to produce more than changes in personnel.
Acemoglu asks what happened to liberal democracy. Nigeria must confront an equally demanding question: what must happen for democracy to become more fully realised in the lives of its people? The answer cannot be found in elections alone, economic performance detached from liberty, or institutions possessing authority without accountability. It lies in constructing a political order in which citizenship carries practical meaning.
The ballot remains indispensable. It is the foundation of democratic authorization, not the completion of democratic responsibility. Nigeria’s democratic predicament is not that its people have been denied the opportunity to choose their rulers. It is that the exercise of that choice has not consistently transformed the institutional relationships through which rulers exercise power.
Dr Hani Okoroafor is the Founder of The Capacity Institute and the originator of the Capacity State Framework, a body of work dedicated to advancing the study and practice of institutional execution capacity. He advises corporate boards and senior executives across Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of BusinessDay. Reactions welcome: [email protected]
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Dr Hani Okoroafor is a global informatics expert who advises corporate Boards in the public and private sectors. His multidisciplinary consulting practice operates in Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East.
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