Nigeria’s Governance Crisis: How not to run a Country on an adhoc regime
There’s a phrase you often hear in Nigeria whenever things go wrong: “E go better.” It captures the spirit of a people who have learned to survive in spite of, not because of, their leaders. But it also captures the story of a nation that runs on improvisation. Where others build institutions, Nigeria builds excuses. Where others plan for decades, Nigeria reacts by the week. Governance has become a long improvisation — a country run on quick fixes and short memories.
Every new government comes in like a repairman who refuses to read the manual or go through what the previous administration has done except in few anointed cases. It dismantles the last man’s work, announces a “fresh start,” and promises miracles that fade faster than campaign posters. The result is a country stuck in a cycle of repetition — fixing the same problems again and again with different names and slogans. Our leaders treat development like a guessing game, as if trial and error were a strategy. They call it reform; the people call it survival.
The clearest example of this ad hoc mentality is what we now call “palliatives.” The word sounds compassionate, but in practice it is a substitute for real governance. Whenever hardship hits — fuel subsidy removal, inflation, food crisis — the solution is almost always the same: hand out bags of rice, share cash transfers, distribute hope in envelopes. For a few days, television screens are filled with smiling officials giving relief to the poor. But after the cameras leave, the people return to the same struggle. The rice finishes. The money vanishes. The problems remain.
It wasn’t always meant to be this way. In the 1970s, during the oil boom, Nigeria had a rare chance to build a self-sufficient economy. But instead of investing in long-term development, the government launched flashy programs that looked good in speeches but collapsed in practice. General Yakubu Gowon’s “National Accelerated Food Production Programme” and Shehu Shagari’s “Green Revolution” promised food abundance but delivered little beyond fertiliser scandals. General Ibrahim Babangida’s administration added more names to the list — the “Better Life for Rural Women,” “Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure,” and “People’s Bank of Nigeria.” Each was launched with banners, jingles, and national pride, but few survived the leader who conceived them. Once the initiator left office, the idea died. No continuity. No institutional backbone. Just memories of what might have been.
And that, in many ways, is the story of Nigeria’s development — ambitious beginnings, abandoned halfway. Our leaders build policies the way a child builds sandcastles on the beach: each new wave of power washes away the last creation. Nothing lasts. Every government wants to be seen as different, even if that means destroying what was working.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the economy. Each administration comes with a new economic gospel, often drafted by foreign consultants and filled with buzzwords — “liberalisation,” “diversification,” “empowerment.” Yet on the streets, little changes. Traders still struggle to feed their families. Factories remain shut. The currency keeps falling. The gap between the numbers government officials quote and the life Nigerians live has never been wider.
When the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was introduced in 1986, Nigerians were told it would liberalise the economy and create prosperity. Instead, it wiped out small businesses, made imports expensive, and inflated the cost of living. Subsequent programmes — NEEDS under Obasanjo, the Seven-Point Agenda under Yar’Adua, Vision 2020 under Jonathan, and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan under Buhari — all came with colourful documents and bold targets. Yet today, the micro realities remain bleak: artisans can’t find work, farmers can’t afford fertiliser, and small traders live one bad market day away from bankruptcy. Numbers may look good on paper, but people don’t live on paper.
This disconnect between macro and micro realities has turned the Nigerian economy into a tale of two worlds — the world of statistics and the world of survival. In the first, GDP “grows” and foreign reserves “rise.” In the second, people skip meals and pray the light stays on long enough to charge their phones. When policymakers talk about diversification, the average market woman wonders how it will help her pay school fees. There’s no bridge between the data and daily life because the policies that produce the data are detached from the people.
The education sector tells a similar story. Nigerian schools have become factories for certificates rather than centers for skill. Our students are trained to pass exams, not to solve problems. Governments boast of establishing new universities as if the number of buildings determines the quality of learning. Meanwhile, the technical colleges that once produced skilled artisans have either shut down or been turned into regular secondary schools. We wanted everyone to go to the university, and in doing so, we forgot the dignity of those who build with their hands. Polytechnics were once vital to industry; today, they are treated like second-class institutions.
When the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) was launched in 1986, it was supposed to equip young Nigerians with practical skills — tailoring, carpentry, welding, electrical work. Four decades later, it is little more than an office with a signboard. Its programmes are sporadic, underfunded, and politicised. We keep training graduates for white-collar jobs that don’t exist, while the country cries out for plumbers, mechanics, and technicians. The unemployment rate is not just a statistic; it is a sentence of frustration for millions who want to work but were never taught how to.
The result of this dysfunction is visible everywhere. Drive across the country and you’ll see the skeletons of abandoned projects — bridges that lead nowhere, hospitals without beds, factories without machines. The Ajaokuta Steel Company, once described as the cornerstone of Nigeria’s industrial future, stands today as a monument to wasted ambition. Since 1979, over $10 billion has been spent on it, yet not a single ton of steel has been produced. The story repeats itself with the National Identity Management Commission, which still struggles to give Nigerians a reliable identity card despite billions spent. Power sector reforms have consumed trillions, but homes remain in darkness. These white elephant projects are not just technical failures; they are moral failures — proof that we confuse activity with achievement.
Why do we keep failing? Part of the reason is that every new government behaves as if the country begins with it. Policies that could have succeeded with time are scrapped because a new leader wants to start afresh. Ministries and agencies work in silos, often duplicating each other’s work. Decisions are centralised in Abuja, where bureaucrats decide for communities they barely understand. And corruption corrodes everything — programmes designed to empower citizens become channels to enrich the powerful. Money meant for roads disappears before the first bulldozer arrives. Projects are commissioned on television but never completed on the ground. There is no credible system to monitor, evaluate, or learn from mistakes. Failure carries no consequence.
Yet amid this chaos, the greatest loss is not financial but psychological. Nigerians have learned to expect disappointment. When a new initiative is announced, the instinctive reaction is a weary shrug. We have seen too many promises fade, too many visions vanish. The ordinary citizen now believes that government is a distant spectacle — something that happens to them, not for them. When hope becomes a memory, cynicism becomes the national language.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Countries far less endowed than Nigeria have risen from poverty by doing one simple thing — sticking to a plan. Rwanda, Singapore, and Malaysia did not achieve stability overnight; they did it through consistency. They built institutions, empowered professionals, and allowed policies to mature. Nigeria can do the same. What we need is not another round of rebranding but a national discipline that values continuity over novelty.
Real reform begins with the courage to build institutions that outlive personalities. Economic and social programmes should be backed by law and insulated from politics. The National Planning Commission should function as the keeper of the national vision, ensuring that policies don’t die with administrations. Poverty alleviation should focus on productivity — on creating jobs through small industries, agro-processing, and rural enterprise — not on distributing food as charity. Education must be restructured to restore dignity to technical and vocational skills. Our young people need classrooms that teach them how to create, not just how to memorise. Infrastructure projects should prioritise functionality — electricity that works, roads that last, hospitals that heal — not monuments that flatter the ego of those in power.
Most importantly, leadership must be redefined. True leadership is not a competition of slogans but the patience to build what others will inherit. It is the humility to complete a predecessor’s project, the discipline to maintain policies that work, and the moral will to resist the temptations of vanity. Nigeria does not need more heroes; it needs gardeners — people willing to plant seeds whose fruits they may never taste.
We have lived too long on improvisation. It is time to build a nation on intention. The tragedy of Nigeria is not that it lacks ideas but that it cannot sustain them. Every plan, no matter how brilliant, becomes another casualty of the next election cycle. Development is not a 100-meter dash; it is a marathon. If we are ever to cross the finish line, we must stop changing direction every mile. We must learn to trust process, to strengthen public institutions, and to resist the seduction of the ad hoc. Our progress will not come from palliatives or press conferences but from patient, consistent nation-building.
The day Nigeria begins to build institutions that endure beyond leaders is the day it will finally start to rise. Until then, our governments will keep distributing relief packages for problems they helped to create, and our people will keep managing to survive. But Nigerians deserve more than survival. They deserve a country that plans, not one that improvises. They deserve leadership that builds systems strong enough that palliatives are no longer needed. Because the mark of true governance is not how much help is handed out in crisis — it is how few crises need help in the first place.
