Keynote speaker Dr Sam Amadi told guests at the First Daily 5th Anniversary Lecture that the gravest threat to the 2027 general elections is not INEC, the judiciary or the security agencies, but the growing belief that a free and fair election is impossible.
He shared a short anecdote about a former top APC leader he once assisted with a strategic plan. After attending a meeting with party governors and senior figures, a former governor praised him for joining their camp.
Amadi said he stayed silent and left afterwards. When the principal asked why he disappeared, he explained that he came only to help with strategy.
The point of the story, he added, was that power in Nigeria often comes from control of INEC, the judiciary and the security agencies.
He said many Nigerians already believe the 2027 presidential election will be rigged because the Tinubu administration has not shown any intention to reform the electoral process.
According to him, President Tinubu has not made a major speech on electoral reform, has not set up a reform committee and has made partisan appointments into the electoral management body.
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He argued that these actions reduce trust and deepen the belief that there will be no credible election in 2027.
He also said that unlike Goodluck Jonathan, who oversaw a free and fair election that removed him from office, many Nigerians do not think Tinubu will allow such a process.
Amadi added that people see a wider pattern of state capture because those who manage elections, security and the judiciary are connected to the president by ethnicity or political alliance.
He noted that this breaks the long-standing practice where presidents avoided putting electoral umpires from their political or ethnic circle.
Amadi said Nigeria has always struggled with credible elections, and the problem is widespread across Africa.
But the present fear, he said, is that many Nigerians have already given up on the possibility of a free and fair contest. That, for him, is the real crisis ahead of 2027.