By Babs Daramola

Image credit: City Arts & Lectures

Mercy, in its pure form, is one of humanity’s noblest virtues. But in Nigeria, mercy has taken a new career path: political, profitable, and proudly selective.

The gates of our prisons have opened once again, and out have walked some of the nation’s most accomplished offenders: drug barons, kidnappers, fraudsters, illegal miners, and yes, even that beautiful wife who so savagely sliced her husband’s blossom.

Her crime was passionate, her punishment heavy, but five years of some theatrics and intrigues, she too has found salvation.

The kind that comes with a presidential signature.We are told this is compassion…an exercise in humanity.

We are told it is meant to decongest our correctional centres, as though the cure for a broken roof is to burn down the house.

Yes, our prisons are overcrowded, but that is because our justice system is slow, our police corrupt, and our facilities a disgrace.

True reform begins with structure and sincerity; not with grand gestures that let the most dangerous walk free while the poor rot behind bars.

The defenders of this mercy mission insist that many of the freed have changed.

They have shown remorse, embraced morality, and in some cases, even enrolled in university programmes.

It’s inspiring, really. So perhaps this is the new gospel: repent theatrically and study strategically.

If you’re serving time, the new get-out-of-jail-free card is simple: write JAMB, attend church or mosque, quote scripture, and look remorseful on visitation days.

A little performance and a little paperwork might earn you a handshake from heaven, or at least from the presidency.

But in truth, this flood of forgiveness may not be entirely spiritual. Many believe it is political, a careful prelude to 2027.

A strategic rehearsal of compassion designed to warm hearts, build networks, and purchase goodwill long before the next election season.

And to make it look credible, a few genuinely deserving names are sprinkled among the unholy, like sugar on a bitter meal.

Never in the history of this country’s exercise of the presidential prerogative of mercy have so many drug barons, fraudsters, murderers and violent offenders been shown such lavish compassion. It is mercy on an industrial scale.

Generous, convenient, and suspiciously well-timed.It all fits neatly, of course, into the Renewed Hope Agenda. That shining slogan of our times.

Perhaps this is what renewal truly means: renewed freedom for the guilty, renewed despair for the innocent, renewed hope for every criminal who still believes in second chances; not from God, but from government.

If this is the face of hope, then despair must be taking notes.Of course, not all inmates are so fortunate.

The poor man who stole food, the woman imprisoned for a petty debt, the teenager wrongfully accused.

They will remain where they are. They have no sponsors, no connections, no access to the corridors of mercy.

In this land, forgiveness has a hierarchy. The deeper your crime, the higher your chances of redemption; provided you know someone who knows someone.

And yet, we are urged to clap. We are told that this is justice.

Maybe justice redefined. But how do you convince a grieving family that the woman who butchered their son has been “forgiven”?

How do you explain to the international community that convicted drug barons are now enjoying presidential compassion, even as the country claims to be fighting a war on drugs?

What message does that send to our youth: that crime is just ambition with bad timing?

With such highly controversial presidential pardon and clemency, Nigeria’s reputation has just bled a little more.

We make ourselves look unserious before the world. We have just upped our reputation as a nation that punishes honesty but forgives criminal brilliance.

The same government that preaches anti-corruption and moral revival has just declared open season on accountability.

Perhaps this is what renewal truly means: renewed freedom for the guilty, renewed despair for the innocent, renewed hope for every criminal who still believes in second chances; not from God, but from government.

It’s as though the war on drugs, kidnapping, and fraud were mere slogans, conveniently forgotten when the culprits are close enough to power.This is not mercy. It is mockery dressed in compassion.

It is the reckless abuse of one of the most solemn powers granted to leadership: the prerogative of mercy. That power was meant to right wrongs, to ease the pain of those unfairly convicted, or to help the truly reformed rejoin society.

It was never meant to excuse hardened offenders or to reward notoriety.But here, we have turned mercy into policy, and policy into parody.

The state now plays God, handing out forgiveness like party souvenirs.

Our prisons are not being decongested; our conscience is. We are emptying cells but filling the streets with lessons in impunity.

So, to all remaining inmates, take heart. There is still hope. Dust off your notebooks, register for JAMB, join the prison choir, and master the fine art of public repentance.

With enough effort and the right blessings, your own miracle of mercy might soon arrive.

And to the rest of us, the lesson is clear: if you must offend, offend boldly. Small crimes waste time; big crimes get attention. If you must sin, sin memorably: the kind of sin that deserves a headline and a pardon.

For in today’s Nigeria, virtue may earn you respect, but vice might just earn you release.

Mercy, they say, is divine. But in our own creed, is pardon now reserved only for the powerful and the connected — while those truly deserving rot behind the bars?

Perhaps only the politically ungrateful would fail to appreciate this fresh gospel of renewed hope, where crime meets compassion, and both walk free.

Nigeria’s economic journey over the past 65 years has been one of profound transformation — shaped by cycles of boom and bust, far-reaching reforms, recurring crises, and enduring struggles with diversification.

As the nation marks 65 years of independence, reflecting on this trajectory is essential to chart a more sustainable, competitive, and inclusive path for the future.

Foundations and Lessons from the Early Years

At independence, Nigeria’s economy was largely agrarian, productive, and inclusive.

Agriculture contributed an estimated 60 percent of gross Domestic Product [GDP] and employed the majority of the country’s workforce.

The export economy was anchored on cash crops — cocoa, groundnuts, palm oil, and rubber — and citizens were actively engaged in the entire value chain.

Governance was decentralized, with regions controlling resources and revenues, which promoted balanced development, accountability, and healthy competition.

This early experience offers an enduring lesson: decentralization and local ownership of resources drive innovation and inclusive growth.

Restoring a more fiscally federal structure could once again foster subnational competitiveness, stimulate innovation, and encourage states and regions to take greater ownership of economic outcomes.

The Oil Boom and Structural Distortions

The discovery and commercialization of crude oil in the late 1960s radically altered Nigeria’s economic and political trajectory.

By the 1970s, oil had become the dominant source of public revenue and foreign exchange.

The oil boom delivered significant wealth but also created structural vulnerabilities.

Agriculture was neglected, leading to food import dependence.

Corruption and rent-seeking behavior escalated, while import-substitution industrialization became overly dependent on imported inputs, leaving domestic value chains underdeveloped.

This dependence made the economy acutely vulnerable to oil price shocks — a weakness that continues to destabilize public finances to this day.

The key lesson is clear: resource wealth must be managed prudently and counter cyclically through well-governed stabilization funds and sovereign wealth investments, while industrialization must be firmly rooted in domestic value chains rather than external dependence.

Nigeria has experienced eight recessions since independence — in 1967, 1975, 1978, 1981–1983, 1993, 2016, and 2020 — largely triggered by oil price shocks, fiscal mismanagement, or global crises.

Adjustment, Liberalization, and Social Costs

The oil price collapse of the early 1980s triggered fiscal and balance-of-payments crises that forced Nigeria to adopt the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in 1986.

This shift introduced currency devaluation, trade liberalization, financial sector reform, and privatization of state-owned enterprises.

While SAP nudged Nigeria toward a market economy, it also came with significant social costs — rising poverty, inflation, and industrial underutilization. Import dependence worsened in the absence of robust domestic production.

The lesson here is that reforms must be carefully sequenced and complemented with strong institutional frameworks and social protection mechanisms to avoid deepening poverty and inequality.

Recurring Recessions and Structural Weakness

Nigeria has experienced eight recessions since independence — in 1967, 1975, 1978, 1981–1983, 1993, 2016, and 2020 — largely triggered by oil price shocks, fiscal mismanagement, or global crises.

Each downturn revealed the same structural fragilities: heavy reliance on oil revenues, weak non-oil exports, and excessive import dependence.

Building resilience will require export diversification, fiscal discipline, and the creation of credible stabilization mechanisms to ensure stability of government spending during periods of revenue volatility.

Oil and Gas Governance: From Crisis to Opportunity

For decades, Nigeria’s oil and gas sector was plagued by poor governance, corruption, and rent-seeking, leading to the collapse of state-owned refineries, heavy dependence on imported petroleum products, and widespread crude oil theft.

This mismanagement undermined fiscal stability and reduced the sector’s developmental impact.

Cheerfully, recent developments — notably the Dangote Refinery and petrochemical complex and ongoing industry reforms — signal a potential turnaround.

These efforts, if sustained, could restore value to the sector, enhance energy security, and catalyze new downstream and petrochemical investments.

Security and Productivity

The last two decades have seen a deterioration in national security — insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, ethnic and religious conflicts, farmers herders clashes and armed robbery — which disrupted agriculture, manufacturing, and mining, and eroded investor confidence.

Restoring security is therefore not just a social imperative but an economic one, necessary to rebuild productivity and unlock investment in the real economy.

Emerging Bright Spots

Despite persistent challenges, Nigeria has achieved notable successes.

The ICT and telecommunications sector has grown from fewer than 20,000 telephone lines in 1960 to over 165 million active lines today, transforming commerce, banking, and governance.

Financial services have deepened, fintech has flourished, and capital markets have expanded.

Nollywood and Afrobeats have turned Nigeria into a global cultural powerhouse.

Broadcasting has grown from one TV station and a few government-owned radio stations at independence to more than 740 broadcast stations today, while e-commerce is reshaping consumer markets.

These sectors demonstrate Nigeria’s potential for non-oil-led growth. Unlocking further progress will require strengthening infrastructure, power supply, broadband penetration, and regulatory consistency to attract and sustain private sector investment.

Macroeconomic and Fiscal Challenges

Persistent macroeconomic instability continues to weigh on growth.

The naira’s dramatic depreciation — from being stronger than the U.S. dollar in the 1970s to ₦1,600/$ in 2024 — has eroded purchasing power, raised production costs, and discouraged investment.

Rising public debt and unsustainable debt-service-to-revenue ratios have constrained the fiscal space, limiting governments’ capacity to fund critical infrastructures.

Policy priorities must focus on restoring currency stability through credible monetary policy, expanding foreign exchange supply by growing non-oil exports, improving public spending efficiency, plugging fiscal leakages, and raising non-oil revenue without stifling private enterprise.

The good news is that the economy is beginning to experience remarkable degree of stability over the last one year.

Demographics, Infrastructure, and Future Growth

Nigeria’s population of an estimated 230 million is both a significant opportunity and a daunting challenge. Infrastructure — roads, power, housing, education, and healthcare — remains grossly inadequate, undermining productivity and competitiveness.

Aggressive infrastructure investment, leveraging public-private partnerships and innovative financing models, is no longer optional but an urgent necessity.

Reform Agenda and the Way Forward

In the last two years, the government has implemented bold reforms, including exchange rate unification, fuel subsidy removal, and tax policy adjustments.

These measures have imposed short-term pain — high inflation and reduced household purchasing power — but early signs of macroeconomic stabilization are emerging.

To sustain reform momentum, these measures must be complemented by targeted social protection programs — cash transfers, food security interventions, and job-creation initiatives — to shield vulnerable households and maintain public support.Strategic Priorities for the Next Decade

Looking ahead, Nigeria must focus on:Deepening economic diversification: Scaling up value addition in agriculture, manufacturing, and solid minerals.

Strengthening governance and institutions: Enhancing transparency, reducing the cost of governance, and improving fiscal responsibility and management.

Investing in human capital: Prioritizing education, health, and vocational training to harness the demographic dividend.

Accelerating infrastructure development: Power, transport, and broadband must be prioritised through PPPs and innovative finance.

Ensuring inclusive growth:

Embedding poverty reduction, job creation, and social protection in fiscal and monetary policy.

Conclusion

Nigeria’s economic history at 65 is one of resilience, missed opportunities, and enormous untapped potential.

The current reform agenda presents a rare opportunity to reset the economy on a path of stability, competitiveness, and shared prosperity.

Seizing this moment will require consistent policies, institutional strengthening, and a deliberate effort to ensure that economic growth translates into improved living standards for citizens.

• Dr Muda Yusuf is the Director/ CEO, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, CPPE.

The August 16, 2025 by-elections were supposed to be a routine democratic exercise — a constitutional means of filling vacant parliamentary seats across 12 states in Nigeria. Instead, they became another tragic reminder of the dysfunction that has come to define Nigeria’s electoral system. For many Nigerians, these elections weren’t just flawed; they were a grim preview of the 2027 general elections, and a painful echo of broken promises long past.

From faulty equipment and logistical nightmares to voter intimidation, violence, and brazen vote-buying — the elections descended into what many now describe as a sham. Even by Nigerian standards, the scale of irregularities shocked the public. Reports from civil society groups and observers such as the Movement for the Transformation of Nigeria (MOTiON) and Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) painted a bleak picture: systemic inefficiency by INEC, failure of BVAS and IREV technologies, and the open exchange of cash for votes. One trader was even caught with ₦25 million in cash — not in a bank, but at a polling unit in Kaduna.

This isn’t just about one election gone wrong. It’s about a country whose political elite continue to sabotage reform, abuse power, and weaponize dysfunction for personal gain. The by-elections were, quite frankly, a dress rehearsal for what may become a democratic collapse if nothing changes before 2027.

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A Legacy of Violence and Decay

Nigeria has always had a troubled relationship with elections. From the bloody contests of the First Republic to the annulled 1993 election, and now to digital-age vote-rigging, the playbook has remained largely the same: violence, manipulation, and the subversion of democratic will.

The names may have changed, but the tactics haven’t. In Kano, more than 300 armed thugs were arrested with weapons ranging from pump-action rifles to swords — not in a warzone, but during elections. Across the country, politicians deploy money and muscle to win at all costs. Why? Because the stakes are high — public office in Nigeria is not about service, it’s a gateway to personal enrichment.

As Dr. Charles Mezie-Okoye of the University of Port Harcourt aptly put it: “What we just witnessed is a tip of the iceberg.” He’s not exaggerating. If this is what by-elections look like, what will happen when the presidency and all legislative seats are up for grabs in 2027?

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Reform Talk, No Reform Action

After the disaster that was the 2007 general election, even late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua admitted it was flawed. He established the Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee, which made bold and well-reasoned recommendations. Chief among them: remove the power to appoint the INEC chairman from the president, unbundle INEC to improve efficiency, and create an Electoral Offences Commission to tackle violence and impunity.

But more than 15 years later, most of those reforms remain on paper. Successive administrations and lawmakers have cherry-picked cosmetic amendments to the Electoral Act while ignoring the foundational problems. The appointments to INEC remain heavily politicised. Electoral violence continues to go unpunished. And the 2022 amendments — though progressive in some areas — did not address the power dynamics that choke the credibility out of Nigerian elections.

Let’s be honest: the political class has no incentive to reform a system that keeps them in power.

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Trust in INEC Is at an All-Time Low

In 2023, INEC registered 93.5 million voters. 87 million collected their PVCs. But only around 27% showed up to vote. That’s a historic low. Even Zimbabwe in 1996 had a better turnout. This isn’t just voter apathy — it’s voter despair.

Nigerians are tired of elections that don’t reflect their will. Tired of queuing under the sun to vote, only for the results to be written in backrooms. Tired of a rigged system that rewards impunity and punishes honesty. And when trust in the electoral process erodes, democracy becomes hollow.

As Professor Ken Nweke puts it, “Citizens’ trust in government depends on the quality of institutions. Appointing devious persons into these institutions erodes that trust.”

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2027: Another Election or Another Crisis?

With less than two years to go until the next general election, the warning signs are flashing red. Civil society is alarmed. Political analysts are worried. Ordinary Nigerians are anxious.

If the system is already this broken during by-elections, there is every reason to fear for what might happen in 2027. This could be Nigeria’s last chance to save its democracy — or at least what’s left of it.

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What Must Be Done

1. Implement the Uwais Report: Not selectively. Not half-heartedly. Fully. This includes taking the appointment of INEC chairperson out of presidential control and creating an Electoral Offences Commission.
2. Strengthen Institutions, Not Just Technology: BVAS and IREV won’t work if the people managing them are corrupt or poorly trained. Electoral credibility starts with competent and independent institutions.
3. Hold Politicians Accountable: Vote-buying, violence, and electoral manipulation must be prosecuted without exception. Enough with the impunity.
4. Empower Citizens: Civil society, trade unions, faith-based organisations — all must put pressure on the National Assembly and presidency to act now. Reform must be people-driven, not politician-led.

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A Final Word

Nigeria’s democracy is sick — and it’s not a mystery why. Broken promises, compromised institutions, and a political culture that rewards violence and deceit have poisoned the system.

But it’s not too late. If Nigerians choose to organise, resist, and demand accountability, this nation’s story can still change. History teaches us that democracies die not just from coups, but from indifference. We cannot afford that.

Now is the time to act. 2027 is not far off. And unless urgent reforms are implemented, we may be heading for a political crisis we won’t walk away from.

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About the Author
This article was written exclusively for Ohibaba.com.