Nigeria is drifting towards federal autocracy as power concentrates across every tier of government
By Onyedikachi Madueke
Nigeria stands at a critical juncture as democratic norms across West Africa deteriorate. While neighbouring states have slid into overt authoritarianism through military coups, Nigeria’s 2023 elections revealed a quieter but nonetheless troubling erosion of democratic accountability. The country, Onyedikachi Madueke argues, is becoming a “federated autocracy” - a system in which federal, state and local elites coordinate to hollow out democratic institutions from within, all while preserving their formal appearance. These processes of systemic change, and how they operate in practice, are essential for understanding Nigerian democratic drift - and what must change to restore genuine accountability.
Introduction
Across West Africa, democracy is undergoing a dramatic reversal. Since 2020, coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger and Gabon have reversed decades of gains, while Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World report recorded the seventeenth consecutive global decline in political rights and civil liberties. Nigeria has long positioned itself as the region’s democratic anchor, but recent elections reveal deep internal vulnerabilities. The 2023 general election, widely expected to be Nigeria’s most transparent due to new digital reforms, delivered the lowest voter turnout in the country’s history. Only 26.7% of registered voters cast a ballot nationwide, reflecting a dramatic collapse in public faith.
These figures reflect a broader crisis: Nigerians increasingly doubt that elections bring meaningful change. Allegations of manipulated results, partisan judicial verdicts, the consolidation of political power at the state level, and the defection of elected officials to the ruling party have weakened the substance of multiparty democracy. Yet the problem is deeper than electoral malpractice. Nigeria’s democratic recession emerges from a system in which authoritarian tendencies are distributed across federal, state and local levels, coordinated by elites whose incentives align against accountability.
This system, best described as a federated autocracy, is now the central mechanism shaping Nigeria’s political trajectory. Understanding how it operates in practice is key to understanding why Nigeria’s democracy is weakening.
Federated Autocracy in Practice
Federated autocracy refers to a political order in which democratic institutions exist in form, elections, parties, courts, and legislatures, but are hollowed out by elite coordination across tiers and arms of government. Unlike fully centralised authoritarian regimes, Nigeria’s version depends on mutual reinforcement between federal actors, state governors and local government elites. Each actor benefits from the system; each actor helps sustain it.
The most visible agents of federated autocracy are state governors, whose influence extends far beyond their constitutional mandates. They control the flow of state resources, dominate state assemblies, appoint loyalists to the judiciary and wield enormous influence over local governments. This power is frequently used to guarantee electoral outcomes in favour of whichever political alliance a governor supports.
A striking example emerged during the 2023 presidential election in Rivers State, one of Nigeria’s most economically and electorally significant states. Publicly available results uploaded to the Electoral Commission’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) for the 2023 presidential election showed the Labour Party leading in numerous polling units. Yet the official results declared the ruling APC victorious. A BBC report revealed that the result was massively altered in favour of the APC candidate, whom the Rivers State governor had pledged to support. Despite statewide controversy, the result stood. Weeks later, the state’s outgoing governor, a member of the opposition PDP, was compensated by being appointed Minister of the Federal Capital Territory by the ruling party, reflecting a widely perceived elite pact. This episode illustrates how federal and state actors cooperate to shape outcomes, regardless of party label.
In Ebonyi State, federated autocracy operates through defection-based consolidation. When the sitting governor defected from the PDP to the APC in 2020, some members of the state assembly followed within days. Opposition lawmakers who resisted were sidelined. By the next election cycle, the entire state machinery, from local government chairmen to party structures, had been reconfigured to protect the governor’s new alliance. Citizens witnessed an overnight political realignment driven not by persuasion or policy but by elite survival instincts.
At the local level, the logic becomes even clearer. Local government chairmen, who should serve as the grassroots foundation of democratic participation, often function as mini-autocrats tasked with delivering electoral outcomes. Local elections, where they exist at all, routinely produce 100% victories for the party controlling the state. In practice, most chairmen owe their positions to governors, not voters. During national elections, they mobilise patronage networks, suppress opposition mobilisation, and coordinate local voting patterns to match the governor’s preferred presidential candidate, as was the case in 2023 in Rivers State. The 2023 cycle saw this dynamic clearly in several states, where turnout patterns and result distributions closely mirrored the priorities of state executives rather than community preferences.
Federated autocracy also thrives through the suppression of traditional institutions that are not aligned with the interests of the state governor. In Kaduna, two traditional rulers were removed in 2023 under circumstances widely interpreted as politically motivated. In Kano, the removal of Emir Sanusi in 2020 followed his criticism of state policies. These actions signal to local elites that dissent carries consequences and that political loyalty is rewarded with protection.
The federal government, for its part, also uses constitutional mechanisms to discipline or reward state actors. Section 305 of the Constitution, which allows the President to declare a state of emergency, has been employed in the past to suspend elected state governors under contested conditions. The suspension of Rivers State’s Governor after he challenged his political godfather, a close ally of the president, is a recent example. At the state level, federal security agencies often play decisive roles during elections, frequently accused of protecting ruling-party interests by restricting opposition rallies or facilitating the movement of compromised electoral materials.
Defection politics reinforces the system further. Since 2023, five governors and dozens of lawmakers have defected to the ruling party, boosting the governing coalition to a supermajority in the Senate (75 seats) despite winning far fewer seats at the ballot box. Anti-corruption cases against defectors often disappear; new offices and privileges emerge. The message to politicians nationwide is unmistakable: survival lies in aligning with the centre.
These examples demonstrate that federated autocracy is not a theoretical abstraction. It is a lived political reality in which federal authority, gubernatorial power and local patronage are fused into a mutually reinforcing architecture of control. The result is a democracy in which elections occur, but the range of viable political choices is tightly constrained by elite consensus.
Conclusion: What Nigeria Risks and What Must Change
Nigeria now sits at a pivotal moment. A democracy where citizens no longer believe their votes matter cannot sustain legitimacy. Declining turnout, rising public cynicism, and institutional capture risk are deepening the appeal of undemocratic alternatives. In a region increasingly destabilised by coups, Nigeria cannot afford a future where its democratic institutions are democratic only in name.
Reversing this trajectory requires confronting the incentives that sustain federated autocracy. Electoral appointments must be made through transparent, multi-stakeholder processes that insulate INEC from partisan dependence. Judiciary reforms are essential to restore confidence; merit-based and depoliticised appointments must replace opaque political bargaining. Local governments need fiscal and political autonomy to break the cycle of gubernatorial domination. Most importantly, elected officials who defect should face serious political consequences, aligning Nigeria with global democratic norms and restoring coherence to party competition.
Political parties, too, must evolve. Without internal democracy, ideological clarity and grassroots engagement, they will remain vehicles for individual ambition rather than channels for citizen representation.
Nigeria’s democracy is not yet lost. The unexpected opposition victories in Abia, Zamfara and Kano in 2023 show that voters still possess the capacity to disrupt elite coalitions when conditions allow. But sustaining that momentum requires rebuilding the institutions and norms that make democracy meaningful. Without bold reforms, Nigeria risks settling into a stable but hollowed-out electoral authoritarianism; federal in structure, autocratic in practice.
About the Author: Onyedikachi Madueke recently completed his PhD in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom. His research interests are at the intersection of institutions, governance, and security in Africa.