Justice, fairness, peace and Nigeria’s 2027 election

By ANTHONY OGBEIFUN As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general election, the country stands again at a familiar crossroads: the choice between narrow, sectional calculation and the broader national demand for justice, fairness and peace. Elections are not merely contests for power. In a plural society such as Nigeria, they are also referendums on whether citizens believe the state belongs to all of them.

Few Nigerian voices expressed this truth more memorably than the late elder statesman and Dan Masanin Kano, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule. In May 2015, Sule led a delegation of the Northern Leaders Forum to congratulate then President-elect Muhammadu Buhari. His counsel on that occasion remains strikingly relevant today.

Sule told Buhari: “With justice, you can rule Nigeria well. Justice is the key.” It was a simple statement, but one carrying the weight of Nigeria’s history. The country’s recurrent crises—ethnic suspicion, religious tension, electoral violence, insecurity, economic exclusion and the erosion of public trust—are not disconnected accidents.

They are symptoms of a deeper disorder: the feeling among many citizens that fairness is selective, opportunity is unequal and power is used to reward loyalty rather than serve the common good. “Behind every crisis anywhere in the world is injustice,” he said. And the antidote, he insisted, is “justice.” That insight should guide every political party, candidate, campaign organisation and voter ahead of 2027.

A nation cannot be held together by slogans alone. Neither can it be governed successfully by force, intimidation or the temporary advantage of incumbency. Sule warned: “The world itself can never be governed by force, never by fear, even never by power.

In the end, what governs is the mind. What conquers is the spirit and the weapons of governing the mind and conquering the spirit are justice and fair play.” Nigeria’s 2027 election will therefore test not only the popularity of candidates, but the moral seriousness of the political class. Justice, in the sense Sule meant it, is broader than court judgments or legal technicalities.