Nigeria Needs Strong Institutions, Not Strong Men

Why the cult of personality in Nigerian public life is a symptom of a deeper structural problem, and why fixing it requires more than a new generation of heroes.

Two days ago, I had the chance to meet with Rufai Oseni during his visit to Berlin. For those unfamiliar, Rufai is one of Nigeria's most recognisable broadcast journalists — an Arise TV anchor known across the country for his unflinching interviews, especially with Nigerian politicians live on air, and a kind of fearless accountability that has made him both admired and, in certain circles, deeply uncomfortable. The occasion was an informal meet-and-greet he had organised for Nigerians in the diaspora, and as fate would have it, I happened to be at the same location.

During his remarks, he spoke passionately about the power of holding government and its institutions to account, and about how that culture of accountability could be a catalyst for saving Nigeria. And that, perhaps oddly, is exactly what got me thinking.

I grew up in Nigeria and lived there for most of my adult life. Today, I live in Germany, where "comparatively, the institutions work better. Where a non-citizen can sue the government and expect the case to be heard on its merits. Where the quality of justice you receive does not depend on who you are or whom you know. As I headed home that evening, I found myself reflecting on the contrast between both societies and thought it was worth sitting with for a moment, particularly in light of the recent events in Nigeria.

What strong institutions actually look like

In Germany, the average citizen can reasonably anticipate what will happen if they sue the government, report a crime, or challenge a tax assessment. That predictability is not luck; it is the accumulated result of constitutional design, judicial independence, professional norms, and genuine enforcement mechanisms built over generations.

I grew up in Nigeria and lived there for most of my adult life. Nigeria's challenge is not a shortage of talented or principled individuals. The challenge is that these individuals are working within systems that often fail to amplify their virtues or constrain the vices of those who come after them. When an institution's quality rises and falls with a particular individual, it is not truly an institution at all; it is a personal fiefdom dressed in institutional clothing.

The paradox of social media activism

Over the last several years, Nigerians have witnessed something genuinely new: the rise of individual citizens as accountability actors. Armed with smartphones and social media platforms, ordinary people have exposed police brutality, documented electoral fraud, shamed officials into reversals, and organised mass protests that shook the country. This is a real and important development. In the absence of reliable institutional accountability, citizen activism has filled a critical vacuum.

But there is a risk buried inside the achievement. When individuals become the primary mechanism of accountability, the question that must follow is: who holds the individuals accountable?

History offers a sobering pattern. Movements built around outsized personalities, however genuine their initial grievances, have a habit of producing new concentrations of power rather than distributing it.

The charismatic reformer becomes the new strongman. The disruptor builds their own patronage network. The anti-corruption crusader bends the rules when the rules become inconvenient. Individuals, no matter how principled, are not a substitute for institutions.

The accountability gains from social media activism are, in large part, reversible. A trend can fade, a platform can be suppressed, a movement's leader can be co-opted or silenced. But a genuinely independent judiciary, a professionally staffed electoral commission, a civil service insulated from political interference, these are far harder to dismantle, precisely because they do not depend on any one person's courage or visibility.

The right ambition

The goal cannot be to find strong individuals to occupy broken structures or take the place of weak institutions. The goal must be to design institutions that produce just outcomes. That is a longer, harder, less photogenic task than a protest or a viral exposé.

It requires constitutional reform, judicial independence, professional civil service recruitment, transparent procurement, and a genuinely free press. It requires the patience to build things that outlast individual leaders.

Like Oseni Rufai, I believe that holding the Nigerian government and its institutions to account is one of the most important things Nigerians can do. But for that accountability to last, it must be built into the system itself, and not depend on the courage of individuals.

Nigeria needs a shift, from depending on individuals to building systems, from celebrating #StrongMen to constructing institutions that work. This conversation has never been more urgent than now.

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