By Ken Ihedioha
There is an uncomfortable question Nigeria has never quite answered: what happens when a government comes to power promising change, transparency and institutional renewal, only gradually to begin applying the principles of accountability selectively?
This is not merely a question about one administration. It is a question about the Nigerian political system itself. We have perfected the art of campaigning against the corruption, impunity and institutional decay of our predecessors, only to discover – once comfortably installed in office – that the same institutions become remarkably convenient when deployed against political opponents, and remarkably inconvenient when they begin scrutinising friends, allies and associates.
That is the double standard, writ large! And it may be one of the most enduring contradictions of the Nigerian project: we change governments more readily than we change the habits of governance.
Consider October 4, 2017, when Nigerians awoke to a startling letter from the then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, to President Muhammadu Buhari. Kachikwu complained that, in more than a year of Maikanti Baru’s tenure as GMD of NNPC, “no contract has been run through the NNPC Board.” He cited major transactions involving $10 billion in crude-term contracts, $5 billion in Direct-Sale-Direct-Purchase arrangements and a $3 billion AKK pipeline contract.
The significance went beyond the personalities involved. Here was an insider raising questions about governance, process and transparency within an institution controlling enormous public resources. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the individual transactions, the allegations went directly to the administration’s professed commitment to accountability. Yet the controversy did not produce the institutional reckoning many expected. Baru remained in office.
Then came “Mainagate.”
In October 2017, Abdulrasheed Maina, a former chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, returned to Nigeria after having fled the country amid allegations concerning the handling of pension funds. His subsequent reinstatement into the civil service triggered public outrage and a political storm. President Buhari eventually ordered his dismissal and arrest, but Maina once again evaded capture.
The episode was devastating not simply because of Maina himself, but because of the question it posed: how does someone wanted by the authorities return to the country, regain official recognition and re-enter public service without the machinery of government knowing – or somebody within it enabling – the process?
Then there was the controversy surrounding Professor Usman Yusuf, former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme. Yusuf was suspended by the Health Minister, Professor Isaac Adewole, over allegations including fraud, executive recklessness, nepotism and high-handedness. President Buhari subsequently reinstated him, despite the institutional objections surrounding his conduct. The controversy raised an uncomfortable question about whether established administrative processes could simply be overridden by presidential discretion.
These episodes were not isolated curiosities. Together, they fed a growing perception that the Buhari administration’s loudly advertised anti-corruption credentials were being compromised by selective application, political proximity and institutional inconsistency.
The irony was particularly sharp because Buhari had entered office with one of the most memorable declarations of his presidency: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.”
Yet questions about appointments, institutional independence, federal character and perceived sectional preference increasingly dogged the administration. The argument was not that every appointment involving a particular region constituted evidence of nepotism; that would be simplistic. The deeper issue was whether competence, fairness, due process and constitutional balance were visibly stronger than political loyalty, personal proximity or sectional affinity.
Perhaps nothing exposed the tension between anti-corruption zeal and institutional restraint more dramatically than the 2019 suspension of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen.
The Presidency justified the action by reference to proceedings before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Critics argued, however, that the President had circumvented the constitutional procedure governing the removal of a judicial officer. The timing – only weeks before a presidential election – deepened the controversy. It was difficult to ignore the apparent contradiction between the speed with which the Presidency acted against the Chief Justice and its much slower responses to other national controversies.
The issue, therefore, became larger than Onnoghen. It became a test of whether the government itself was prepared to submit to the rules it demanded that everyone else obey.
Fast-forward to 2026, and the argument has acquired a contemporary resonance.
The Tinubu administration came to power under a different banner – Renewed Hope – but inherited the same institutional weaknesses and the same political culture. The language changed; the challenge did not.
Today, critics accuse the administration of applying different standards of scrutiny to political opponents and insiders. Allegations have been raised concerning the deployment of anti-corruption and security agencies against political adversaries, alongside claims of insufficient urgency when allegations touch members of the governing establishment. The controversy surrounding the alleged Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council—PFIPC—has added another layer to questions about institutional due diligence and the ability of fictitious or questionable entities to acquire the appearance of governmental legitimacy.
The 2026 budget has generated another round of controversy, with allegations of padding, duplication and questionable allocations. Calls for a forensic examination of allegedly overlapping provisions have further reinforced a familiar Nigerian anxiety: who audits the auditors, and who holds the powerful accountable when the questionable decisions originate within the machinery of government itself?
These allegations must, of course, be distinguished from established findings. Allegation is not conviction, accusation is not proof, and political rhetoric is not evidence. But that distinction makes the institutional question even more important. A credible government should welcome scrutiny precisely because transparent scrutiny separates fact from fiction.
The through-line between the Buhari years and the present is therefore not simply corruption. Nigeria has never lacked corruption scandals. The deeper pathology is selective accountability: swift and highly visible action when the politically inconvenient are involved, and conspicuous caution, silence or procedural ambiguity when the politically connected are implicated.
And this is where the argument transcends Buhari, Tinubu or any political party.
Every incoming administration campaigns against the impunity of its predecessor. Then, somewhere along the way, it discovers that some of that impunity is remarkably useful.
The opposition that once screamed about selective justice becomes strangely quiet when its own people are protected. The politician who once demanded institutional independence suddenly discovers the virtues of presidential discretion when the beneficiary happens to be a political ally. And citizens who once demanded accountability can become enthusiastic defenders of wrongdoing simply because the accused belongs to their ethnic, religious or political camp.
That is how institutions die – not necessarily through one spectacular act of authoritarianism, but through thousands of small compromises with principle.
Nigeria does not lack anti-corruption agencies, task forces, tribunals, auditors or laws. What we lack is the institutional culture to apply their authority even-handedly – to allies and adversaries, insiders and outsiders, powerful and powerless alike.
That is why “Change” and “Renewed Hope” must ultimately mean more than campaign slogans. They must mean a fundamental change in the relationship between political power and public institutions.
The real test of any administration is not whether it can prosecute its enemies. It is whether it can investigate its friends.
It is not whether it can defend its record. It is whether it can subject that record to independent scrutiny.
And it is not whether it can demand obedience to the law. It is whether it will obey the law when obedience becomes politically inconvenient.
Until that standard becomes non-negotiable, Change, Renewed Hope—or whatever banner the next administration chooses—will remain merely another chapter in Nigeria’s long catalogue of political promises: grand in rhetoric, selective in application, and painfully familiar in outcome.
