2027 presidency: Campaign without manifestos

•Stakeholders worry about non-publication of governance plans by major candidates

PHILIP IBITOYE writes on the worry among stakeholders about the failure of presidential candidates to showcase accountability by publishing their manifestos some 80 days to the 2027 election.

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) lifted the ban on 2027 presidential campaigns on August 19, 2026. However, 67 days later and 83 days to the January 16, 2027, poll, a significant chunk of the 18 political parties and their candidates jostling for Nigeria’s ultimate seat of power have yet to present and/or publish details of the policies they intend to pursue in office if they achieve victory.

On Saturday, October 24, President Bola Tinubu, who is aiming to earn a return to the presidential villa, held his first re-election rally in Kaduna State, urging Nigerians to reward the last three years of what he described as necessary economic reforms. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s African Democratic Congress (ADC) inaugurated its presidential campaign council (PCC) on Friday, October 9, criticising the Tinubu administration for failing Nigerians and presenting itself as the credible alternative in the January 16, 2027, presidential poll.

However, Peter Obi’s Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) is yet to inaugurate its PCC, stymying the official take-off of the party’s campaign. The NDC was set to inaugurate its PCC last Tuesday, October 20, but it said Obi’s engagements abroad forced it to reschedule to tomorrow, October 26.

Even as sparks fly between the presidential candidates as they trade accusations of incompetence and make promises of raising the standard of living in the country, the campaign has been conspicuously short on comprehensive policy plans and workable ways to execute them, a phenomenon that has not gone unnoticed by good governance advocates. None of the three candidates believed to belong to the major political parties – Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi – have released a detailed manifesto of their governance plans.

“We are worried that they don’t have a new manifesto,” Bukola Idowu, Executive Director of Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI), a non-partisan organisation focused on citizen-led democratic development, told Sunday Tribune of the presidential candidates, while also raising concerns about the diminishing role of political parties in developing manifestos.

A manifesto is a public declaration of objectives and policies of political parties and candidates, which is made available before an election. It is also a social contract outlining implementation methods, funding sources, and expected trade-offs.

Political analysts note that, without a manifesto, voters are forced to choose blindly. Notably, Atiku released a 12-point policy agenda in September, which included his much-debated return of fuel subsidy and perennial promises of a “major overhaul of the health sector” and “local government autonomy”. However, unlike a manifesto, this 300-word policy agenda does not offer practical ways to achieve the promises it sets out.

On his part, Tinubu, at the APC PCC launch on October 14, talked more politics than policies, urging his foot soldiers to ensure victory “at all levels, from the polling booths to the wards and states”. Curiously missing from his speech was a second-term agenda, although two weeks earlier, in his Independence Day address, he had claimed that Nigeria had passed through its Red Sea of his admittedly painful economic reforms, promising that prosperity is next. But he is yet to pad this promise with a detailed second-term manifesto.

Similarly, Obi has been heavy on campaign rhetoric of a new Nigeria being possible and hopes that the country will be OK, a play on the initials of him and his running mate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. At various forums, the NDC presidential candidate has discussed his plans to reform various sectors of the economy, but there remains no manifesto detailing his agenda and how he aims to execute it.

Also, Seyi Makinde, the presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), has yet to release the manifesto for his “Reset Nigeria” agenda, which he says is built around four pillars: Economy, Education, Security and Socio-Political Development. In his penultimate newsletter published on September 17 and seen by Sunday Tribune, the Oyo State governor said his team was putting together a complete manifesto, but he is yet to publish it more than a month later even as election day beckons.

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However, one candidate has bucked the trend, releasing a 120-page manifesto. Adewole Adebayo, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on September 8, unveiled his manifesto entitled “Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity”, echoing the party’s 1993 “Farewell to Poverty” campaign of the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola. With 18 candidates on the 2027 presidential ballot, one candidate unveiling a manifesto 83 days out from election day is hardly a pass mark.

According to political observers, this gap is a serious threat to good governance because not only do manifestos provide a clear governing plan, but they also provide the public an avenue to scrutinise candidates’ plans and track them once they are in office.

“A manifesto matters because it gives voters a basis for interrogating what candidates are promising,” Akindeji Aromaye, Senior Media Associate at Enough is Enough (EiE) Nigeria, told Sunday Tribune, noting that voters must be presented detailed plans to make informed choices.

Similarly, Olawale Afolabi, a Lagos-based political analyst, said the lack of manifestos deprives voters and civil society of a critical tool of accountability. “You get those in power to be accountable for their actions based on the promises made via the manifesto,” he said.

A sharp departure from 2023 campaign

The lack of manifestos by candidates at this point in the campaign is a departure from the previous presidential campaign. At this point in the 2023 campaign, all of the three major presidential candidates had published their manifestos, giving voters an insight into their vision for the country’s future.

Atiku went first in 2022, unveiling his 74-page “My Covenant with Nigerians” on May 24, just days before the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential primary, which he won. The document provided practical steps to achieve his 5-point Development Agenda. However, four years later, the 2027 ADC presidential candidate has not yet bothered to publish a detailed breakdown of his governing plans.

Similarly, on October 21, 2022, then-President Muhammadu Buhari launched Tinubu’s 80-page manifesto entitled “Renewed Hope 2023: Action Plan for a Better Nigeria”. The document featured the APC candidate’s broad vision for various sectors of the economy. It also included a promise to “phase out the fuel subsidy” while maintaining “the underlying social contract between government and the people”. The president appeared to stray from his manifesto on May 29, 2023, when he declared that “fuel subsidy is gone”, failing to “phase out” the scheme as he promised.

Political observers note that, in the absence of a documented manifesto, it is nearly impossible to detect such disconnects between campaign promises and governance in office and hold candidates accountable.

Obi was the last candidate to publish his manifesto entitled “It’s Possible: Our Pact with Nigerians” during the 2023 campaign with his policy document arriving on a Sunday morning, December 4, 2022, 82 days before the February 25 presidential poll. Like others, he listed seven priorities and got into details of how he would set about achieving them in office. However, during this campaign, Obi has often relied on speeches and interviews to put across his policy vision, including backtracking and now promising a return to the fuel subsidy regime after curbing the corruption that plagued the scheme’s previous iteration.

Yet, he has yet to provide a practical plan for the return of the subsidy, including the cost implications for the federal government. On Thursday, October 22, Professor Pat Utomi, one of Obi’s most prominent backers, said he was in Manchester, United Kingdom (UK), to share the Obi-Kwankwaso manifesto, but if such a document exists, it is yet to be shared with the public, continuing to raise concerns about candidate transparency among stakeholders.

Stakeholders fear future governance, accountability may suffer

Good governance advocates have expressed disappointment and concern with the absence so far of policy documents that can help voters learn the policy direction of their candidates and arm them with tools of accountability. In separate interviews with Sunday Tribune, they stated that voters are being done a disservice by not being availed of candidates’ manifestos, making it harder to make informed choices in the upcoming poll.

“When promises are not supported by clear policy proposals, citizens have less information with which to compare candidates and assess the implications of their choices,” Aromaye said.

Similarly, Afolabi warned that the absence of manifestos ahead of the 2027 elections may leave the winner running the country “on autopilot” with “no direction in terms of policy”.

However, the KDI executive director noted that the trio of Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi appear to be telling Nigerians that their 2023 manifestos are still the same policies they are running on in the 2027 elections. The implication, according to Idowu, is that the candidates are signalling that nothing much has changed in the direction of the country in the last four years, which is an indictment of the incumbent. He also criticised political parties for having no distinct identities, which is a departure from the past when political parties steered candidates in their policy direction.

“So, that tells you that it is the candidates now that are making the political party, not the political party making the candidates,” the KDI chief said.

With less than 90 days until Nigerians begin to cast their ballots in the 2027 presidential election, political parties and their candidates have put voters in the dark. Good governance advocates argue that putting voters in this situation is unacceptable. Campaign slogans and speeches can be denied, they say, but documented promises are concrete accountability tools to keep officeholders in line.