Electricity: The megawatt promises that rarely pan out

No issue better illustrates the distance between campaign promises and governance outcomes in Nigeria than electricity. The figures promised from the podium and the figures recorded on the national grid have, across every election cycle, remained far apart.

In 2019, Atiku pledged to generate 20,000 megawatts of power by 2024. In 2023, running again, he raised his target to 25,000MW. Tinubu, in the same cycle, targeted 15,000MW and promised a sustainable 24/7 supply. Obi pledged 10,000MW in his manifesto. Industry operators, speaking at a PwC Nigeria Annual Power and Utilities Roundtable ahead of the 2023 election, said the candidates' manifestos outlined goals to double or triple electricity output, but without properly diagnosing the problems in the sector.

What Atiku or Obi might have achieved in office remains unknown because they did not win. What is verifiable is Tinubu's record. During the 2023 campaign, he made a pledge that has since become one of the most-quoted lines from that election season: "If I do not provide steady electricity in my first four years, do not vote for me in the second term." He added: "Whichever way, by all means necessary, you must have electricity, and you will not pay for estimated bills anymore."

Three years into his administration, Tinubu is seeking a second term. Data shows that Nigeria's power distribution has remained below 4,500 megawatts for much of his tenure, a figure little changed from what obtained when he took office. Households continue to receive estimated billing. Generator use remains widespread across businesses and residences, while the Presidential Villa itself had to migrate to renewable energy, owing to the frequent grid collapses witnessed under his watch.

Heading into 2027, Obi has again promised to raise Nigeria's electricity generation and distribution to at least 10,000MW within four years, the same headline figure he offered in 2023. His 2023 manifesto had additionally promised to double the grid to 25,000MW within two years. The NDC presidential candidate may offer the same promise during the 2027 campaign. His opponents - Tinubu and Atiku - are also likely to provide their own numbers as they begin their campaigns, but if the past is prologue, the promises are expected to remain what they are - promises.

Job creation: The numbers change; the promise stays the same

The calculation of Nigerian job creation promises has been consistently ambitious across every election cycle since 2015.

The APC's 2015 manifesto promised to create three million jobs per year. "During our first term in office, we pledge to create 3 million new jobs a year through public works programmes," then-APC spokesman Lai Mohammed said in the party's 2014 Christmas message. After the party's candidate, Buhari, came into power in 2015, the unemployment rate continued to rise during his eight years in office.

By 2019, Atiku was pledging to attain a single-digit unemployment rate by 2024 through the creation of three million jobs annually and to double Nigeria's GDP to $900 billion by 2025.

In 2023, Tinubu campaigned on economic revival and job creation anchored on his record as Lagos governor. Three years on, unemployment and underemployment remain among the most frequently cited public grievances, with food inflation having reached its highest levels in decades - 40.9 per cent in June 2024 - following the removal of the fuel subsidy and the devaluation of the naira, both policies implemented by the Tinubu administration.

In the run-up to the 2027 presidential contest, all presidential candidates, including the incumbent, are expected to make the same case for the economy. According to analysts, Tinubu will continue to say that his painful reforms are working and there is light at the end of the tunnel, while Obi will continue to maintain that Nigeria must shift from a consumption-based economy to a production-driven one capable of generating employment at scale. Atiku's 2027 platform, now under the ADC, is also likely to have job creation and economic reform as central themes.

Restructuring: The perennial constitutional question

Restructuring - broadly defined as the devolution of fiscal and political powers from the Federal Government to the states - has appeared in presidential campaigns for more than a decade, without ever being comprehensively legislated.

The APC's 2015 manifesto included a commitment to amend the Nigerian Constitution to ensure devolution of powers and entrench true federalism. By 2019, the Buhari administration was publicly distancing itself from that pledge. Atiku ran restructuring as a signature platform in 2019, making it one of the clearest points of distinction in that election. By 2023, the issue had receded from the headline positions of all three major campaigns, crowded out by the more immediate concerns of inflation, insecurity, and the fuel subsidy question.

While restructuring no longer generates the level of buzz it used to attract, elements of the issue, such as state police, remain on the front burner of the polity. On Thursday, June 11, the House of Representatives approved the State Police bill with overwhelming support among lawmakers present, while the Senate also passed a similar bill through second reading. But even after passing in both chambers, the constitutional amendment bill will still need to be approved by at least 24 state assemblies to become law. Even after becoming law, funding arrangements, recruitment structures, and other supporting mechanisms will likely require further legislation before states can start operating their police forces.

That means the issue will continue to elicit promises from all candidates in the race who view devolution of police powers to state governments as an effective solution to the pervasive insecurity in the country.

Also, on the elements of restructuring, the Tinubu campaign is likely to point to the local government (LG) autonomy reform enacted during his administration - the Supreme Court judgment on LG financial autonomy forced by his Ministry of Justice - as evidence of progress on the devolution question, although the vast majority of LG administrations across the country remain beholden to state governors.

Agriculture and diversification: A conversation that has outlasted multiple administrations

Every administration since the return of civilian rule in 1999 has articulated a commitment to diversifying the Nigerian economy away from oil dependence, with agriculture consistently cited as the primary vehicle for that transition.

Buhari's Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) was the signature agricultural initiative of his administration. It recorded some disbursements and some documented outcomes, but Nigeria's food import bill and its broader oil revenue dependence remained structural features of the economy when he left office in 2023.

In 2023, all three major candidates included agricultural development and economic diversification in their manifestos. Tinubu, in office, has pointed to various agribusiness initiatives as part of his administration's economic agenda. The country's food inflation, however, reached record highs during his first three years, driven by a combination of insecurity in farming communities, the naira devaluation, and the removal of the fuel subsidy, which raised the cost of transportation and agricultural inputs.

For the 2027 campaign, Obi has already argued that large-scale investment in agriculture is "the only dependable strategy for escaping hunger and poverty." Tinubu and Atiku's platforms are also expected to include agricultural development among their economic priorities. But previous and present administrations have shown that these promises have seldom produced results.

'Change,' 'Next Level,' 'Renewed Hope,' and What Next

Perhaps the clearest way to understand the continuity of Nigerian campaign promises is to trace the slogans that have carried them.

In 2015, the APC campaigned on "Change" - a word that captured the public mood after sixteen years of PDP federal governance. Buhari's platform rested on three pillars: fighting corruption, improving security, and reviving the economy. He won. By his second term, many assessments noted that insecurity had expanded beyond the North-East, where it had been concentrated when he took office, and that economic growth had been disrupted by recession, currency pressures, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

By 2019, with the same administration seeking a second term, the slogan had become "Next Level." Buhari's campaign pointed to progress on infrastructure, the N-Power scheme, and incremental security gains in the North-East. By 2020, Nigeria's unemployment rate had risen from 14.2 per cent in Q4 2016 to 27.1 per cent in Q2 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), even as the N-Power programme, a campaign centrepiece, had been implemented.

In 2023, Tinubu ran on "Renewed Hope," promising economic recovery, job creation, improved security, stable electricity, local government autonomy, a stronger naira, and infrastructure development. A review by the civic-tech organisation, AdvoKC Foundation, published last Wednesday, June 3, assessed 53 of Tinubu's campaign promises and early policy commitments. It found that 11, representing 20.8 per cent, could be classified as Kept, with 22 promises, representing 41.5 per cent, rated as Compromised, and 20 promises, representing 37.7 per cent, classified as Broken.

Tinubu's administration points to the removal of the fuel subsidy, the unification of the foreign exchange market, the Supreme Court ruling on LG autonomy, the new minimum wage, and a series of infrastructure projects as evidence of delivery. Critics note that fuel prices have risen by 463 per cent and food prices more than doubled in the first three years of his tenure, triggering a cost-of-living crisis.

What slogan 2027 will carry is not yet fully known. But the issues beneath it - electricity, security, jobs, restructuring, agriculture, and more - are already in view. They are the same conversations Nigerians have been having with their candidates since the return of democracy in 1999. As the politicians mount the podium once again ahead of the 2027 elections, Nigerians are set to have the same conversations again, especially with similar candidates and faces as they had in 2023, seeking their votes once more.