Nigeria has entered that familiar season again.
The season when every roadside suddenly begins to look like an art gallery of smiling politicians.
The season when men who have not visited their constituencies in three years suddenly remember the exact road that needs to be fixed.
The season when politicians rediscover the market woman, embrace the mechanic, dance with students, eat roasted corn by the roadside and assure Nigerians that “the suffering will soon be over.”
Welcome to campaign season.
Campaigns for the 2027 presidential and National Assembly elections officially opened on August 19, 2026, according to the timetable released by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. The presidential and National Assembly polls are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while campaigns for governorship and State House of Assembly elections are expected to begin later, on September 9.
But for many Nigerians, the real campaign did not start on August 19.
It started months ago.
It started with political defections.
With carefully arranged endorsements.
With old friends suddenly becoming political enemies.
With former enemies discovering that they have always shared the same “vision for Nigeria.”
Now that the whistle has officially been blown, Nigerians should prepare themselves.
The next few months may be loud, dramatic, emotional, entertaining, and, if history is anything to go by, occasionally unbelievable.
Here are five things Nigerians should expect this campaign season.
1. Everybody will suddenly become the people’s best friend
There is something almost magical about election season.
A politician who could not answer your phone call last year may suddenly be standing in front of your house asking about your family.
The same political figure who has not visited the community since the last election may suddenly discover that the road is bad.
Very bad.
Urgently bad.
And, of course, only he or she can fix it.
Expect more visits to markets.
More town hall meetings.
More surprise appearances at churches and mosques.
More politicians eating amala, drinking kunu, buying roasted corn and taking photographs with ordinary Nigerians.
None of these things is necessarily wrong. Politicians are expected to meet the people they want to govern.
The real question Nigerians should ask is much simpler: Where were you before campaign season?
Because elections are not just job interviews. They are also performance reviews.
A candidate asking Nigerians for another four years should be prepared to explain what happened during the previous four.
And an opposition candidate promising heaven and earth should also be asked one uncomfortable question:
How exactly do you plan to get us there?
2. The battle of promises will be louder than ever
If the early political conversations are anything to go by, Nigerians are heading into a campaign season dominated by the issues that have defined everyday life: food prices, fuel, jobs, insecurity, electricity, the naira and the general cost of simply surviving.
Already, the political argument over fuel subsidy has become a major point of disagreement, with politicians taking sharply different positions on whether the policy should remain dead or be brought back.
And that may only be the beginning.
Expect promises.
Big promises.
Some will sound possible.
Others may sound like something Nigeria has been waiting for since independence.
Candidates will promise cheaper food, stronger security, more jobs, stable electricity and economic relief. The ruling party will be expected to defend its record, while opposition parties will try to convince Nigerians that the country needs a different direction.
That debate is already taking shape, with economic hardship and insecurity emerging as central concerns heading into the election. (Reuters)
But Nigerians should listen beyond the applause.
A campaign promise should not end with: “We will fix Nigeria.”
The next question should be: How?
Where will the money come from?
What policy will change?
How long will it take?
What happens if the plan fails?
The era of simply shouting “we will transform Nigeria” should be over.
At least, Nigerians should demand that it is.
3. Social media will become another battlefield
The 2027 election will not only be fought in stadiums, campaign grounds and town halls.
It will also be fought on your phone.
Your WhatsApp.
Your Facebook timeline.
Your X feed.
Your TikTok For You Page.
And, unfortunately, probably inside the family group chat.
Every day, Nigerians should expect videos, campaign jingles, interviews, documentaries, memes, edited clips and viral posts designed to influence public opinion.
Some will be genuine.
Some will be misleading.
Some will be completely fabricated.
And some may look so convincing that even intelligent people will share them before checking whether they are true.
This is where voters have a responsibility.
Not every viral video is evidence.
Not every screenshot is authentic.
Not every person speaking confidently on TikTok knows what they are talking about.
Campaign season will test not just politicians but Nigerians themselves.
Before forwarding that explosive message, pause.
Before joining an online mob, check.
Before believing that “INEC has secretly changed something”, verify it from an official source.
Because in the age of viral misinformation, a lie does not need to be true.
It only needs to arrive before the correction.
4. Expect more defections, alliances and political surprises
If there is one thing Nigerian politics has taught us, it is this: There are no permanent enemies. There are only permanent interests.
The man a politician described as the greatest threat to democracy yesterday could become a “brother” tomorrow.
A party once dismissed as irrelevant may suddenly become the new political destination.
Old alliances may collapse.
New alliances may emerge.
And Nigerians may wake up one morning to discover that two politicians who spent years attacking each other are now standing on the same campaign stage, smiling for photographs.
The opposition landscape remains fragmented, while the ruling APC is also working to consolidate its nationwide campaign structure as the race gathers momentum.
For voters, the important thing will be to look beyond the drama.
Politics is full of handshakes.
But Nigerians should ask what those handshakes mean.
Is an alliance based on ideas?
Is it based on policies?
Or is it simply a mathematical calculation about who can win?
Because changing political parties does not automatically mean changing political behaviour.
5. Nigerians will be asked to choose between anger, hope and memory
Perhaps the biggest battle of the 2027 election will not happen between political parties.
It may happen inside the minds of Nigerians.
There is anger.
Anger about hardship.
Anger about insecurity.
Anger about unemployment.
Anger about promises that were made and expectations that were not met.
But there is also hope.
Hope that things can improve.
Hope that the next election could produce better leadership.
Hope that Nigeria can still become the country millions of its citizens imagine.
And then there is memory.
The memory of what politicians said in 2023.
The memory of what happened after the celebrations ended.
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The memory of campaign promises, fuel prices, exchange rates, insecurity and the daily struggle to make ends meet.
That is why 2027 may ultimately come down to one question: What matters more to Nigerians, what they are being promised now, or what they have experienced in the last few years?
President Bola Tinubu and the APC will face scrutiny over the government’s economic reforms, living conditions and security situation, while opposition candidates will face their own test: convincing Nigerians that they offer not just criticism, but a credible alternative.
The campaign has started. But Nigerians must do more than watch
For the next several months, Nigerian politics will become impossible to ignore.
There will be rallies.
There will be music.
There will be posters.
There will be accusations.
There will be leaked documents.
There will be dramatic interviews.
There will probably be defections that nobody saw coming.
And somewhere in the middle of all the noise, Nigerians will have to make one of the most important decisions of the decade.
That is why this campaign season should not just be about what politicians say.
It should also be about what Nigerians ask.
Ask candidates about their records.
Ask them about their policies.
Ask them about the economy.
Ask them about security.
Ask them how they intend to fund their promises.
And when they promise to “change Nigeria,” ask them the question every Nigerian voter should carry throughout this campaign season:
What exactly will you do differently?
Because after the music stops, the campaign posters disappear and the politicians return to Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and their various government houses, Nigerians will still wake up every morning to the same realities.
The price of food will still matter.
The cost of transport will still matter.
Security will still matter.
Jobs will still matter.
And that is why the 2027 campaign season should be more than a competition over who can make the loudest promise.
It should be a national interrogation.
This time, perhaps Nigerians should not only listen.
They should question. They should verify. They should remember.
Because politicians will eventually leave the campaign stage.
But Nigerians will have to live with the consequences of the choice they make.