Beyond zoning: Rethinking merit in Nigeria’s 2027 leadership recruitment

With the 2027 general elections less than a year away, Nigeria’s political season has officially begun. Across party secretariats, government houses, and community halls, consultations are ongoing and posters will soon follow. But as you listen closely to the conversations, you will hear what is missing. Too often, the debate is not about capacity, character, or track record. It is about zoning. It is about “our turn.” It is about who knows the governor, the minister, or the godfather.

From Abuja to Igedeland, from the North to the South, the hard question confronting Nigerians is the same: What kind of leaders do we want, not just for 2027, but for the decade after? If we get the recruitment wrong again, we will get governance wrong again. And the cost will be paid by ordinary citizens.

For too long, Nigeria’s leadership recruitment has operated like a reward system rather than a selection process. Political parties, which should be the gatekeepers of talent, have become marketplaces. The currency is money, loyalty to a patron, and ethno-regional calculation. The outcome is visible everywhere. We have federal lawmakers who have never spoken on the floor in four years. We have local government chairmen with no development plan beyond sharing palliatives. We have state projects abandoned midway because the contractor was a political ally, not a competent firm.

Former Chief Economic Adviser, Prof. Ode Ojowu, captured it bluntly at the recent AIMP lecture in Abuja: “Nigeria is not ruled by capability. Nigeria is not ruled by what you can do. Nigeria is largely influenced by where you come from.” That is why macroeconomic gains feel distant. GDP can grow by 11.2% and reserves can cross $50 billion, but if the people recruited to manage those resources lack competence and integrity, the gains will not reach the ward, the PHC, or the classroom. Leadership recruitment is not merely about who emerges. It is about the processes, values and structures that determine the quality of governance.

Zoning was conceived with a noble purpose: to ensure inclusion, equity and national balance in a diverse country. But in practice it has been reduced to a mechanical formula. Once a zone is “due,” parties scramble to pick the most available person, not the most able. The result is mediocrity elevated by arithmetic. And when the mediocre get into office, they either become invisible or become a problem.

We did not always do it this way. In many of our traditional systems, leadership came with tests. Most systems, if not all of them, for instance, demanded that a leader be a man of means, a skilled negotiator, an orator, and a man of justice before he could speak for his clan or community. Seniority, mentoring, and consensus mattered. There was a pipeline. Modern political parties have no such pipeline. Aspirants emerge months to an election, buy forms, and disappear after. There are no debates, no policy vetting, no background checks. If 2027 will be different, that must change. Parties must ask three basic questions of every aspirant: Do you have the knowledge? Do you have the track record? Do you have the empathy and self-control to serve rather than to rule?

Reform cannot rest on parties alone. Citizens must also change. Selling a vote for N5,000 or a bag of rice is a contract for four years of poor representation. The electorate must start demanding manifestos, attending town halls, and keeping scorecards. The media also has a duty. We must resist the temptation to amplify only the “big boys” with billboards. We must profile the teacher who turned around a public school, the health worker running a functional PHC, the engineer, the woman leader, the young professional who has served in their community and can scale that service.

NLC spokesperson, Barr. Benson Upah, was right to warn that while other groups in Benue and across Nigeria are already organizing and negotiating for influence in 2027, some communities are still limiting their conversation to seats that are “statutorily ours.” That is a dangerous place to be. Politics does not reward entitlement. It rewards preparation.

2027 is not just another election. It is a national recruitment exercise. The people elected will determine how the Renewed Hope Development Plan 2026–2030 is implemented. They will decide whether programmes like NG-CARES, SOLID and HOPE actually move from Abuja to the last ward. They will decide whether security improves, whether schools work, and whether hospitals have drugs.

Nigeria cannot afford another cycle of emergency candidates. We need a deliberate, merit-driven pipeline. Political parties must reform their internal democracy. Citizens must vote for competence, not connection. The media must spotlight substance over slogans.

As Nkrumah said during the struggle for independence, when you have political power, everything else will be added unto you. Political power is the master key. In 2027, it is time Nigerians used that key wisely, and chose leaders not by where they come from, but by what they can do.