Op-Ed: At the 2027 Nigerian Elections, Nigerian Artists Must Stay on the Side of the People

If you ask the average Nigerian to summarize the kind of relationship between Nigerian artists and state officials, many would likely point you to a video. It’s a video composed of short clips featuring artists like Tiwa Savage, Olamide, and Burna Boy. In it, they’re all wishing Seyi Tinubu, the son of Nigeria's current president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a happy birthday. Considered objectively, one could argue that this video is simply a group of friends paying a tribute to another friend – albeit one who is arguably more politically connected than they are. A closer inspection, though, might point to something more concerning about the proximity between the state and members of the arts.

Many of the descriptions in the video included words such as kind, selfless, and magnanimous. It’s not uncommon for artists to share a cordial, even co-dependent relationship with state officials. After all, politics and art exert similar outsized influence on people’s minds and behaviors. Actors and music artists inspire the same devotion and dedication that politicians can scurry up from one campaign trail. And politicians can be materially impactful on people’s everyday lives in the same way a musician’s performance can have a lasting, sanguine effect on their fans. Over the years, these two institutions have often sidestepped their similarities. Many artists will claim they don’t enjoy talking about politics and often avoid applying it explicitly in their work. On the other hand, many politicians will refer to the arts as mostly recreational, an optional experience to show off their social standing and nothing more. 

But the truth is that the two are always aware of and attuned to each other’s powers. What’s even worse is that, when it boils down to it, the scales of power aren’t entirely evenly distributed. At the end of the day, the state always has the upper hand. Where the arts can rely on their influence and their ability to galvanise movements, the state is privileged with resources and greater institutional backing when exercising its power. In extreme cases, the state has acted as an active deterrent to collective resistance. And has often never hesitated to crush dissent and flatten protruding opinions. 

Interestingly, though, the state has routinely had little reservation about targeting artists' influence. Their awareness of the influence art and artists have always posed a threat to the state. Across Nigerian history, writers, singers, and actors have been dealt the retaliatory hand of the state by speaking out or challenging oppressive policies. It’s a violent mechanism that has persisted since military rule and continues to do so today. It can be gleaned from the timidity and worrying subservience that defines the relationship between artists and politicians.

But Nigeria is at a critical juncture in its modern history. In February 2027, less than a year from now, the country will head to the polls to vote for its next president. By all indications, despite the country's abysmal state of affairs, the current president has every intention of maintaining power for the next four years. His campaign machinery is already in full swing. Campaigns are ongoing, stakeholders have been approached, and perhaps most tellingly, members of the arts, from actors to musicians, cultural influencers to writers, have been selected to endorse his aspirations. Within the ambit of democratic engagement, this is a perfectly permissible line of action. And this piece doesn’t seek to cast aspersions or dictate to democratic citizens who they should or shouldn’t support. What I am most curious about, though, is whether our artists are examining their relationship with the state and what it would take to bring the art back on the side of the people.

How will Nigerian artists use their influence?

Last year, writer and poet Eze Paul Azino published a searing critique of the slimming down of intellectual freedom and the significantly docile Nigerian fourth estate. In it, he writes, “The Nigerian state, having learned from the Abacha years that direct repression generated too much international attention, developed more sophisticated methods for neutralizing opposition. Instead of killing intellectuals, it began buying them.”

This paragraph encapsulates the current relationship between the Nigerian state and the arts. It’s a relationship that has completely abandoned the artist's role as the state's closest access to its people, substituting instead a vapid relationship buoyed by mutual extraction. In recent years, members of Nigerian art have wielded their influence for self-interest and in complete disregard for the people from whom they derive it. Politicians, particularly those with abysmal track records and a history of repeatedly undermining public trust, continue to use artists for their influence and proximity to the public. This cycle has plunged the country into multidimensional despair and socio-economic stagnation. 

During Tinubu’s 2023 election campaign, his candidacy was endorsed by a substantial number of artists (from movie stars to singers) who have returned to endorse him this year, despite his objectively abysmal performance in office. Under his administration, poverty rates in rural Nigeria have risen to 75%, while insecurity has seen a baffling, unchecked increase. News of killings, bombings, and kidnappings has become recurrent to the point of normalcy. According to Amnesty International, over 10,000 Nigerians have lost their lives to insecurity challenges under President Tinubu’s administration. Just recently, 23 people were killed in a bomb blast in Maiduguri, a day before the President’s state visit to the U.K. Many Nigerians have been thrown into new levels of social disenfranchisement, all while trying to make it out. 

Artists have a duty to speak up. Artists have a duty to side with the people and represent their interests. This is the least that can be expected from all that those same people, who also make up the bulk of their supporters, give them in support, awareness, and financial rewards. The forthcoming elections will see many young Nigerians turn a corner. There’s already widespread discontent with the state of things. The sheer indignities — from unfixed roads to the inconceivable amounts of money allocated to government operations — that Nigerians endure every single day will likely reach a boiling point. It is crucial now that artists think critically and honestly about whom they endorse and why they put their weight behind them. The curse of exceptionalism and an individualistic mindset may have gotten us through these past few years. Still, as the world is battling many instabilities, and our country remains largely ill-equipped to provide its people with the most basic amenities, we might be encouraging an implosion that’ll leave us with a hollowed-out country. One filled with resentful countrymen and a rupture that might be impossible to mend.