“In Nigeria, our political engagement tends to peak around presidential elections. Social media is flooded. Young people register and mobilise. Civil society organises debates. The energy is palpable. But when it comes to local government elections, the excitement fades. Turnout drops. Attention wanes”
By Joy Ekanem-Babasola
During the recently concluded Local Government Area 2026 elections in Abuja Nigeria, I arrived at my polling unit rather early. I haven’t had the privilege to vote as I have often by the nature of work, always observed elections since the 2019 elections. The officials were there already, methodically setting up. The ballot boxes were arranged, the voter register laid out, and accreditation began quietly.
But it was quiet in more ways than one. Barely anyone was there.
In some more minutes to an hour, a few people trickled in. I cast my vote, then stepped aside to observe the process, something I have enjoyed over the years. Slowly, more people arrived, mostly older men. In the time I remained, I counted perhaps 50 voters. Of those, no more than 12 were women. Yet my strongest observation was not gender disparity; it was absence.
My polling unit serves multiple estates, with residents that should number in the hundreds. Where was everyone? I wondered aloud why turnout seemed so low compared to the 2023 presidential elections. A middle-aged man standing beside me responded candidly in broken English: “What’s the purpose of the election when it will likely end up in a selection?” He paused, then added something even more telling: “Even the presidential elections make them just no bother us, make them just give Tinubu the ticket and allow us stay for our house for one day rest.” His words were not said in anger. They were said in resignation.
I asked him whether he understood the importance of the LGA elections, what the elected chairperson actually does, and how those roles directly affect his everyday life.
He could not answer.
So I explained: local government chairpersons are responsible for ensuring waste is collected and properly disposed of. They oversee local roads and ensure they are motorable. They influence street lighting and traffic management. They support primary healthcare centres, markets, and local schools. They play a role in environmental sanitation, community security coordination, and grassroots economic activities like this our corner market, so traders don’t go overboard with prices and
These are not distant policies debated in Abuja’s corridors of power. These are the services that determine whether you can drive to your house without damaging your car, whether your street is lit at night, or whether refuse piles don’t stay up at your gate.
And in that moment, I realised something troubling: many of us do not understand how critical local government is.
In Nigeria, our political engagement tends to peak around presidential elections. Social media is flooded. Young people register and mobilise. Civil society organises debates. The energy is palpable. But when it comes to local government elections, the excitement fades. Turnout drops. Attention wanes. Media coverage shrinks. Many do not even know the candidates running in their wards and Yet governance is not experienced primarily at the federal level. It is experienced at the grassroots.
When waste is not collected, we blame the “government.”
When roads deteriorate, we blame the “government.”
When streetlights fail, we blame the “government.”
But which government?
Local governments are constitutionally recognised as the third tier of government in Nigeria. In principle, they are designed to bring governance closer to the people. In practice, they are often weakened by state-level control, funding challenges, political interference, and in many cases, public indifference. And that indifference may be the most damaging factor of all. But maybe with the supreme court ruling of financial autonomy of the LGA’s this will change.
The man’s comment about elections becoming “selections” reflects a wider crisis of trust. Many Nigerians believe outcomes are predetermined. When that belief settles deeply enough, participation feels pointless. But democracy erodes not only through manipulation it erodes through withdrawal. If citizens disengage from local politics, accountability disappears entirely at the level closest to them. Grassroots governance becomes opaque. Chairpersons operate without scrutiny. Councillors become invisible. If only we knew that low turnout does not punish politicians but strengthens those already entrenched.
Another quiet observation at my polling unit was demographic: more older voters, fewer young people, fewer women. This raises important questions: Are young Nigerians only mobilised by “big” elections? Do women face additional structural barriers; time constraints, safety concerns, political alienation that reduce participation? Have we failed to communicate how local governance intersects with daily realities like childcare, sanitation, public health, and small business regulation issues that often disproportionately affect women? Democracy cannot be sustained if participation becomes selective by age or gender.
There is a pattern we rarely name. What I witnessed in Abuja is not an exception. It feels , if i am being honest, like a mirror of something broader. We overlook grassroots elections, yet become emotionally consumed by presidential contests. We speak of the “nation,” with urgency and pride, but the wards barely enter our conversations. We argue about federal appointments, yet many of us cannot name our councillors.
And still, the road outside your house is not repaired by the presidency. The refuse in your estate is not cleared from the villa. The local primary health centre does not wait for instruction from Abuja to function. The most immediate expression of governance happens much closer to us than we like to admit.
When we withdraw from that level, perhaps because it feels small or unremarkable, we do not simply ignore it. We loosen the very structure that holds everything else together
How then do we reclaim the grassroots? Rebuilding trust will require reforms: greater transparency in local government finances, stronger independence from state overreach, civic education that clearly explains roles and responsibilities, and consistent community engagement beyond election cycles. But policy reform alone will not fix disengagement. Trust is built not only through systems, but through understanding. Citizens must know, in practical and concrete terms, what their local chairperson does, what their councillor is responsible for, how budgets translate into roads, waste disposal, primary healthcare, and street lighting. When governance feels abstract, participation declines. When governance becomes visible and tangible, accountability strengthens.
I learned something profound about communication yesterday. When you tell a child, “Go clean your room,” what they hear is often different from what you mean. Later, you ask why the shoes are still on the floor, why the bed is unmade, why the toys are scattered; but you never said those things explicitly. The instructions were vague. However, when you say, “Go clean your room: pick up your toys, put away your shoes, and make your bed,” and you repeat it consistently, eventually “clean your room” comes to mean exactly that. Civic engagement works the same way. We cannot speak in broad, distant terms about democracy and expect participation. We must communicate clearly, persistently, and specifically about what local governance is and why it matters. Over time, the message settles. And then reclaiming the grassroots may not require grand gestures, just something simpler and more powerful: showing up.
Democracy in itself in Nigeria is imperfect, it is often frustrating. But disengagement does not fix it, it cedes it; Local government elections may not trend on social media. They may not generate national debates. They may not feel historic. But they are foundational.
If we truly desire accountable leadership, responsive governance, and community development, then our political attention must start where governance touches us most directly, at the grassroots. Because when we ignore local elections, we are not opting out of politics, We are opting out of influence.
