By Olufunke Baruwa
Africa is richly endowed with land, minerals, oil, gas, arable soil, creative talent, and the youngest population in the world. Nigeria alone has an estimated 37 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, vast gas deposits, and a population exceeding 220 million people. Yet decade after decade, much of the continent remains trapped in fragile democracies, weak service delivery, and leadership cycles that look more like generational inheritance than electoral succession.
The haunting question we must confront is this: Is public office simply too attractive in Africa? And if so, why? Answering this requires uncomfortable honesty about incentives, institutions, history, and our own collective complicity. While the allure of political power is universal, its grip on many African states including Nigeria included has become dangerously enduring.
One of the most striking paradoxes of African governance is the persistence of leaders in power far beyond reasonable democratic expectations. Across the continent, constitutions have been amended, courts reshaped, and electoral systems weakened to extend or rig tenures. In Cameroon and Uganda, presidents have governed for decades. In Nigeria, the aborted third-term agenda of 2006 remains a powerful reminder that even constitutional democracies are not immune to tenure elongation temptations.
But why does this persistence happen? At its core, power in many African states is not primarily exercised for service; it is leveraged for protection, privilege, and patronage. Public office becomes less about stewardship and more about access to state contracts, budget allocations, oil blocks, security votes, and political immunity.
Nigeria illustrates this vividly. Despite earning hundreds of billions of dollars from oil since the 1970s, the country still struggles with unreliable electricity, decaying public schools, and underfunded hospitals. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, over 130 million Nigerians are classified as multidimensionally poor. Yet political office holders remain among the highest paid public officials globally when allowances and opaque benefits are factored in.
In such an environment, stepping down from office is not merely relinquishing power, it is forfeiting access to enormous economic advantage and, in some cases, losing protection from investigation. Power becomes both prize and shield.
The Elusive Democratic Dividend
Nigeria has conducted uninterrupted civilian elections since 1999. Ballots are cast, results declared, and governments sworn in. Yet for millions, democracy has not translated into tangible improvement in daily life.
Youth unemployment and underemployment remain high. Inflation continues to erode incomes. Public universities face recurrent strikes. Hospitals lack equipment. Infrastructure deficits persist. This is the absence of the democratic dividend—the concrete benefits citizens expect from governance.
Why does this happen? First, institutions remain weak or compromised. Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has made technological improvements, yet elections are still marred by logistical failures, vote-buying, and litigation. The judiciary is overburdened and occasionally accused of inconsistency in politically sensitive rulings. Legislative oversight often appears timid in the face of executive dominance. Without robust institutions, democracy becomes ritualistic—periodic voting without sustained accountability.
Second, political survival depends more on loyalty than competence. Elections are frequently shaped by patronage networks, ethnic alignments, religious rhetoric, and financial inducements rather than policy debates. Once elected, leaders prioritize maintaining coalitions that keep them in power. Budget allocations may serve political calculus more than national development.
Third, meaningful alternatives remain constrained. Opposition parties are often fragmented or weakened by defections. Civil society faces regulatory and financial pressures. Independent media operate under economic strain and political intimidation. The space for transformative political competition narrows.
The result is citizen frustration. Movements such as #EndSARS in 2020 exposed widespread anger over police brutality and governance failures. More recently, #EndBadGovernance and #OccupyNASS protests have voiced economic grievances and demands for accountability. Yet protests, while powerful, rarely translate into structural reform without institutional anchoring and sustained political organization.
The consequences are severe: declining public trust, rising emigration, and growing cynicism among young people who increasingly see politics as a closed club of elites. Nigeria loses thousands of skilled professionals annually to the “Japa” wave—not merely for economic reasons, but because of a crisis of governance confidence.
Across Africa, similar patterns persist. The African Development Bank has repeatedly warned that youth unemployment poses a threat to stability. Governance failures more than resource scarcity drive this crisis.
Political Dynasties and the Power to Perpetuate Self
Another troubling trend is the normalization of political dynasties. Across Africa, leadership has, in several cases, evolved into family inheritance—from Togo’s Gnassingbé family to Congo’s Sassou-Nguesso dynasty and Angola’s Dos Santos lineage.
Nigeria, though formally democratic, is not insulated from dynastic politics. Political families dominate party structures at federal and state levels. Children of former governors, senators, and presidents frequently occupy strategic offices. Party tickets often circulate within elite networks rather than emerging through transparent internal contests.
First, political identity has become personalized rather than institutional. Parties are frequently vehicles for individual ambition, not ideological platforms. Where institutions are weak, grooming a family successor appears safer than risking independent leadership.
Second, internal party democracy is fragile. Candidate selection processes are often opaque and monetized. Delegates are courted through inducements. Meritocratic pathways are limited, discouraging competent outsiders.
Third, social deference to status and lineage seeps into political culture. Leadership becomes associated with inherited entitlement rather than earned legitimacy. The outcome is predictable: elite reproduction. Policies rarely disrupt entrenched inequality because beneficiaries of the system design the rules.
Reimagining Leadership for a New Africa
To understand the magnetic pull of public office, we must examine incentive structures. In Nigeria and elsewhere, public officials enjoy extensive immunity while in office, control over procurement and budget processes creates opportunities for rent extraction, political appointments serve as rewards for loyalty and anti-corruption enforcement is inconsistent and sometimes selective.
When governance systems fail to guarantee consequences for abuse, the rational calculation shifts. Public office becomes an investment with high returns and low risk. As long as these incentives remain intact, politics will attract those seeking wealth and protection more than those seeking service.
If public office is too attractive, how do we make it less so? How do we transform leadership from prize to responsibility? First, strengthen institutions not individuals. Electoral reforms must deepen transparency. Judicial independence must be safeguarded. Legislative oversight must become assertive rather than symbolic. Anti-corruption bodies require insulation from political interference.
Second, defend and enforce term limits. Constitutional safeguards are only as strong as citizen vigilance. Third, institutionalize internal party democracy. Parties must adopt transparent primaries and financial accountability. Fourth, empower youth and women meaningfully. Nigeria’s “Not Too Young To Run” Act was a milestone, but structural barriers—campaign finance costs, patronage networks—still limit participation while the Reserve Seats Bill for Women is pending.
Fifth, move beyond voting to continuous accountability. Citizens must track budgets, demand open procurement, use freedom-of-information mechanisms, and support investigative journalism. Accountability cannot be seasonal.
Finally, build reform coalitions. Faith leaders, professional bodies, labour unions, student groups, diaspora communities, and civil society organizations must coordinate rather than operate in silos.
Ultimately, structural reform must be accompanied by cultural change. Leadership must be redefined as stewardship, not entitlement. Public service should be honourable precisely because it is accountable.
So, is public office too attractive in Africa? Yes, because we have built systems that make it lucrative, protective, and inheritable. But this is by design. We can redesign incentives, strengthen institutions and reward integrity so that leadership becomes temporary and service permanent.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
