Political systems, like public health, collapse not only from dramatic shocks but from prolonged neglect of hygiene. When sanitation fails, disease spreads quietly; when political hygiene erodes, democratic decay advances unnoticed. Nigeria’s electoral culture increasingly reflects this pathology; not through overt illegality alone, but through tolerated disorder, institutional self-satisfaction, and the normalisation of civic contamination.
Political hygiene refers to the discipline of accountability, transparency, restraint, and corrective maintenance within governance structures. It is the daily, unglamorous work of keeping institutions clean enough to be trusted. In Nigeria, this discipline has been progressively deprioritised, replaced by ritual compliance and rhetorical reassurance. Elections occur, results are declared, and institutions congratulate themselves, while the civic environment remains polluted.
In Kogi State, electoral engagement has become an exercise in risk management rather than democratic expression. Voters calculate not only preference but endurance: how long to wait, whether materials will arrive, and whether participation is worth the physical and psychological cost. Such calculations are symptoms of hygienic failure. Where political processes are healthy, citizens expect clarity, predictability, and dignity. Where they are not, participation becomes survivalist.
The absence of political hygiene does not always announce itself through chaos. More often, it manifests as procedural clutter, unclear communication, delayed logistics, inconsistent enforcement, and selective responsiveness. None of these individually collapses democracy. Together, they create an environment where trust cannot survive. Like contaminated water, the danger is cumulative.
Institutions contribute to this decay when they prioritise reputation management over sanitation. The refusal to conduct rigorous post-election self-scrutiny, the aversion to public admission of error, and the reliance on internal validation mechanisms all weaken democratic immunity. An institution that cannot disinfect itself eventually infects the system it was designed to protect.
Comparatively, societies that sustain democratic health invest heavily in political hygiene. Electoral bodies in resilient democracies treat criticism as diagnostic data, not as hostility. They publish operational failures, invite independent audits, and reform openly. Hygiene, in this sense, is preventative rather than reactive. It assumes imperfection and plans for correction.
Nigeria’s challenge is not the absence of laws or technology. It is the erosion of civic cleanliness, the quiet acceptance of disorder as normal. When citizens adjust to dysfunction rather than resist it, decay becomes systemic. The danger lies not in outrage but in accommodation.
Political hygiene also implicates political actors and the electorate itself. Parties that exploit institutional weaknesses, candidates who benefit from opacity, and citizens who disengage entirely all contribute to the same unsanitary ecosystem. Hygiene is collective; its failure is shared.
The long-term consequence of poor political hygiene is democratic fatigue. Citizens stop expecting fairness and start expecting inconvenience. Participation declines, not because people hate democracy, but because democracy feels physically and emotionally unsanitary. At that stage, legitimacy becomes procedural rather than moral.
Kogi State is not unique in this regard. It is illustrative. What occurs there reflects a national pattern in which elections are treated as events rather than processes, and credibility is assumed rather than maintained. Without hygiene, repetition does not produce stability; it produces stagnation.
Political hygiene does not demand perfection. It demands seriousness. It requires institutions willing to clean publicly, correct visibly, and listen without defensiveness. Until that culture is established, Nigeria’s democratic rituals will continue to function like untreated wounds, covered, not healed.
Democracy, like health, survives not on declarations but on discipline. Where hygiene is absent, decay becomes destiny.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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