by Mohammed Bello Doka
27 June, 2026.
It is said that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But there is a more insidious danger than the corruption of men in power: the institutionalization of corruption itself, the encoding of impunity into governance until the illegal becomes legal, the abnormal becomes normal, and the citizen questions not the system but their own sanity. This is the grave reality of Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, where corruption, long built into the nation's constitutional and political DNA, is being methodically institutionalized through legislative manipulation, judicial subjugation, and a complete divorce between law and practice.
The premise that corruption is built into Nigeria's DNA is not hyperbole; it is structural. The 1999 Constitution, a military decree dressed in civilian clothing, was never designed for accountability. It created an over-centralized federal system where oil revenue flows to Abuja and is shared, fostering a national cake mentality where everyone fights for a slice rather than generating local revenue. This flaw has been exploited by successive administrations, but under President Tinubu, it has been elevated to an art form. The constitution enables corruption, the Supreme Court enables confusion, the National Assembly enables impunity, and the police enable gaslighting. The citizen wonders whether the system is broken by accident or design. The answer appears to be the latter. The system is rigged against the people from its foundations, designed not to serve but to exploit.
At the heart of this institutionalization is the troubling evolution of Nigeria's electoral framework. The Electoral Act 2026, which President Tinubu signed into law on February 18, 2026, has been described by critics not as a reform but as a death warrant for credible elections. Senator Ireti Kingibe, who served on the senate committee on electoral reforms, has raised the alarm that every aspect of the electoral amendment bill was turned upside down and that the final provisions did not reflect the consensus reached during stakeholder engagements. She noted that the document presented later did not reflect the outcome of the committee's work, emphasizing she still possesses copies of the original draft showing significant alterations. This is not lawmaking; this is legislative capture of a nation's democratic process, the institutionalization of corruption through the very laws meant to prevent it.
The principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, no crime, no punishment without law, is foundational to justice. Yet under the Electoral Act 2026, this principle is being systematically undermined. Critics point to the removal of qualification as an express ground for an election petition under Section 138, suggesting that constitutional requirements for office including age, education, and integrity may be treated as negotiable. This raises profound questions about the rule of law and the principle of suprema lex esto, let the law be supreme. If a constitutionally unfit candidate can hide behind a statutory shield once results are announced, the 1999 Constitution risks reduction from supreme law to mere suggestion. Nigerians are being asked to accept that illegality, once inaugurated, becomes untouchable. This is corruption encoded into the electoral process.
The amendment to Section 29A of the Electoral Act, which centralises pre-election litigation, further illustrates this dangerous trend. This provision now requires all pre-election matters for National Assembly, State Assembly, and Governorship disputes to commence exclusively at the Federal High Court, while Presidential disputes must begin at the Court of Appeal. On its face, this appears procedural. However, its timing, coming less than a year before the 2027 elections, raises serious questions under Article 2(1) of the ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, which provides that no substantial modification shall be made to electoral laws in the last six months before elections except with the consent of a majority of political actors. The question is whether this amendment, which fundamentally alters the jurisdictional landscape of electoral dispute resolution, constitutes such a substantial modification. The answer is self-evident to any student of democracy. This is not reform; it is rigging the game before the whistle is blown.
The problem is not merely what the law says but how it is used. The unsettling reality is that a Chief of Staff to the President can publicly tell an opposition member to go to court and scatter them, we will support you, and the court is expected to comply. This statement, which should have triggered a national crisis, was met with deafening silence from the judiciary. The Aristotelian concept of justice as giving each their due is being perverted into a system where those in power are given everything and the people nothing but promises. When the Chief of Staff can openly strategize the destruction of an opposition party through litigation, the judiciary ceases to be the last hope of the common man and becomes a political instrument. Corruption is not just being tolerated; it is being actively institutionalized through the highest offices.
This judicial subjugation is further evidenced by the recent exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy by President Tinubu. The clemency granted included posthumous pardons for the Ogoni Nine, a restorative act, but was fundamentally undermined by the concurrent commutation of sentence for a high-profile murder convict and the full pardon of a financial crimes convict. The constitutional check, consultation with the Council of State, has been exposed as ceremonial, leaving the Prerogative of Mercy virtually unfettered and often used for political patronage rather than genuine justice. This practice severely diminishes the deterrent effect of judicial sentences, compromises the anti-corruption mandate, and erodes public faith in judicial finality and the Rule of Law. When the executive can unilaterally overturn judicial decisions, the principle of res judicata, that a matter has been finally decided by a court, becomes meaningless. The President himself has acknowledged that corruption in the judiciary destroys the nation, yet his actions suggest a systematic weakening of judicial independence. This is the institutionalization of corruption through the very instrument meant to check it. The judiciary is systematically and constitutionally weakened, trapped in a framework that denies it the power to save itself, let alone the common man who seeks refuge in its halls.
The President's decision to remove the fuel subsidy on his first day in office, without consulting anyone and without looking at a single document, represents a fundamental breach of democratic governance. Vice President Kashim Shettima revealed that President Tinubu deliberately kept the decision secret, excluding it from his written inaugural speech to prevent persuasion against it. Shettima praised this as the courage of leadership, but to any observer of democratic norms, it represents the height of executive arrogance. The doctrine of audi alteram partem, hear the other side, is a fundamental principle of natural justice. When a decision affecting over 200 million Nigerians is taken in secret, without consultation with the cabinet, the National Assembly, or the people, it is not leadership; it is authoritarianism. Former Minister Solomon Dalung argued this demonstrated a lack of understanding of governance processes. Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal described it as driven by a sense of arrogance. This is corruption of process, corruption of democracy, and corruption of the social contract between government and governed.
The problem is compounded by the constitutional and political framework itself. The academic concept of federated autocracy has been used to describe Nigeria's political system, where authoritarian control is exercised not only from the national centre but also through coordinated and complicit subnational units. State-level actors function as enforcers of central authority, suppressing opposition, rigging elections, and weakening institutions in exchange for political patronage, protection, or access to federal resources. This is not the democracy envisaged by the 1999 Constitution, which was supposed to be a break from military rule. Instead, it is a system where the trappings of democracy are maintained while its substance is systematically hollowed out. The federal system, designed to ensure diffusion of power, has been repurposed to serve a centralized, hegemonic order. Corruption is not an aberration; it is the operating system.
The disparities between law and practice are stark. The Nigerian legal system has produced landmark legislation including the EFCC Act, the ICPC Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, laws that would be the envy of many democracies. Yet in practice, these laws are selectively enforced. The Tinubu administration has secured over 7,000 convictions and recovered over N500 billion through the EFCC, yet critics argue that many of these are driven by cybercrime and lower-level fraud cases rather than prosecutions involving politically influential figures. The conviction of former Minister of Power Saleh Mamman, sentenced to 75 years for money laundering, represents the administration's biggest high-profile conviction, but concerns persist about the pace, consistency, and neutrality of anti-graft enforcement, especially in cases involving politically strategic allies of the ruling APC. As the maxim goes, fiat justitia ruat caelum, let justice be done though the heavens fall. Yet the heavens are not falling for the politically connected. This selective justice is corruption institutionalized.
Compare this to saner climes, those with functioning democracies that have robust checks and balances preventing such consolidation of power. In India, the exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy is subject to robust judicial constraints, ensuring it is not used for political patronage. In South Africa, the constitutional court has struck down executive actions that violated the principles of accountability and transparency. In European democracies, electoral laws are not changed close to elections without the consent of a majority of political actors. These systems recognize that the legitimacy of the law depends not just on its content but on the process through which it is adopted. When laws are passed in secrecy, without public input, they lose their moral authority. When the Supreme Court delivers judgments that require another court judgment to understand, when bail conditions are set so stringent that even a market woman questions their fairness, when the police call armed bandits registered vigilantes, the system is not just broken; it is being broken deliberately.
The Nigerian National Assembly has increasingly become a rubber stamp for executive excess. The legislature, which under the constitution is supposed to be a check on the executive, has been reduced to a mere appendage, passing laws that even a market woman would recognize as politically motivated. The Electoral Act amendment, with its awkward insertions and questionable provisions, is a case in point. Senator Kingibe's allegation that the final Act deviated from what was agreed upon is a damning indictment of the legislative process. When the legislature abdicates its oversight function, the principle of salus populi suprema lex esto, the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law, is sacrificed on the altar of partisan interest. This is corruption of the legislative process, corruption of representation, and corruption of the democratic ideal.
The pattern is clear. First, the constitution is manipulated to favour incumbency. Second, the judiciary is weakened to prevent meaningful challenge to executive power. Third, the police and security agencies are used to suppress dissent and redefine reality, calling armed bandits registered vigilantes. Fourth, the public is gaslit into accepting this new normal. The ordinary Nigerian is expected to accept that laws can be changed without public input, that the Supreme Court can deliver judgments requiring another court judgment to understand, that bail conditions can be so stringent that even a market woman questions their fairness, and that a Chief of Staff can openly strategize the destruction of the opposition through litigation. The market woman, who has never read a law book, knows this is not justice. She knows it is not democracy. And she is right. Common sense, though not common, dictates that a system which consistently protects the powerful and punishes the powerless is not justice but oppression.
The populace is systematically miseducated into believing that corruption is not merely acceptable but encouraged. The teacher, entrusted with shaping young minds, demands bribes or sexual favours for grades, perpetuating a cycle of exploitation that begins in the classroom and extends into every profession. The doctor exploits the patient, treating illness as an opportunity for profit rather than a call to healing. The lawyer exploits the client, turning justice into a commodity accessible only to those who can afford it. The media, which should serve as the watchdog of democracy, charges exorbitant fees for broadcast, silencing the voices of the poor and amplifying only those who can pay. Every profession in Nigeria has been designed, whether by design or neglect, to exploit rather than serve. At the apex of this pyramid sits the politician, who exploits everyone, enriching himself while the masses sink deeper into poverty.
President Tinubu is institutionalizing many firsts that will haunt the country for decades. He is the first president to sign an Electoral Act that fundamentally rewrites the rules of political competition to benefit incumbency, the first to remove a subsidy without consultation, the first to have his Chief of Staff openly threaten the opposition, and perhaps the first to systematically weaken every arm of government to ensure his rule is unchallenged. Plato warned that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in government, is to live under the government of worse men. Nigerians are now living under that government, and the punishment is being paid in blood, treasure, and the erosion of democratic rights. Corruption, long built into the nation's DNA, is now being institutionalized at a scale and speed that will make it nearly impossible to reverse.
The tragedy is that Nigeria is not a poor country. It is rich in resources, talent, and potential. But it is being systematically impoverished by a political class that has elevated corruption from vice to virtue. The laissez faire approach to governance, where the powerful do as they please and the powerless are expected to accept it, is not sustainable. The people are angry, and the people are watching. The question is whether the institutions designed to protect them will finally stand up and do their duty, or whether they will continue to be complicit in the destruction of the nation. Nigerians must recognize that the corruption built into the nation's DNA is not immutable; it can be excised. But that excision requires courage, unity, and an unyielding demand for accountability. The legal maxim ubi jus ibi remedium, where there is a right, there is a remedy, must be invoked. The remedy is not in the courts alone, but in the streets, in the voting booth, and in the hearts of the people.
The future of Nigeria depends on whether citizens will reclaim their sovereignty and demand accountability. Nigerians must remember that the power to change their country resides in their hands. The question is whether they will use it. The corruption built into the DNA of Nigeria is being institutionalized by President Tinubu, but it can also be unbuilt by a people who refuse to accept it. The choice is theirs, and the time to choose is now. The heavens may not fall for the politically connected, but they will fall for a nation that loses its soul. Nigeria must not lose its soul. It must fight for its future, not with violence, but with the quiet, relentless determination of a people who have had enough. The market woman knows this. The lawyer knows this. The politician who still has a conscience knows this. The question is whether they will act. The answer, one hopes, is yes. For the sake of Nigeria, it must be yes.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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