Publish Your Government Before Nigerians Vote: An Open Letter to Peter Obi -By Vitus Ozoke, PhD

His Excellency Mr. Peter Gregory Obi:

I have a proposition for you. It is bold. It is unconventional. It may even sound politically radical. Before Nigerians cast the first ballot in the 2027 presidential election, show them the government you intend to form. Do not merely tell Nigerians what an Obi administration would do. Tell them, to the greatest extent legally and practically possible, who will help you carry it out.

Publish your proposed cabinet. Name the Nigerians you intend to nominate to lead the critical institutions of government. Tell us who would manage the economy. Who would lead the fight against corruption. Who would oversee justice. Who would be entrusted with defense and national security. Who would drive policy in power, infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, technology, and industry.

Identify your proposed national security team and, where legally appropriate, your intended nominees for leadership roles at critical federal agencies and parastatals. These would be nominees or designates, not legally completed appointments. The Constitution and existing statutes prescribe confirmation and other procedures for many federal offices. Those processes must be respected.

But that is precisely the point. Nominate them before the election. Let Nigerians see them. Let Nigerians scrutinize them. Let Nigerians investigate their records. Let Nigerians debate their qualifications. And then let Nigerians vote with their eyes open. Put the government on the ballot.

Nigeria has traditionally asked voters to elect a president largely on faith. We vote for one man and his running mate. Only after they secure power do we discover who will actually exercise it. That arrangement gives the victorious candidate enormous discretion at precisely the moment the voter’s leverage has diminished.

The election is over. The mandate has been secured. Then come the ministers, advisers, agency heads, board appointments, and other powerful officials whom voters never considered when making their choice. I am proposing that you turn that tradition upside down. Put the government itself on the ballot.

Not literally, of course. Nigerians will still elect a president and vice president as provided by law. But politically and morally, give voters something approaching a collective ticket: the presidential candidate, his running mate, and a representative team of Nigerians he intends to entrust with rebuilding the country.

Imagine the power of that statement. Instead of asking Nigerians: “Do you trust Peter Obi?” you would be asking: “Do you trust Peter Obi’s judgment – and this team?” That is a much more demanding test of leadership. And that is exactly why it would matter.

Let Nigerians judge your judgment. A president does not govern alone. The quality of a presidency depends largely on the quality of the people to whom presidential authority is delegated. A candidate may give wonderful speeches. He may produce an impressive manifesto. He may make ambitious promises. But personnel eventually becomes policy.

The person selected to manage the economy matters. The person entrusted with national security matters. The Attorney-General matters. The ministers responsible for power, health, education, agriculture, infrastructure, and industry matter. The people running consequential federal agencies matter.

So let Nigerians judge not merely your promises, but your judgment in choosing people. If you assemble an extraordinary team, Nigerians should know it before they vote. If there are questionable people on that team, Nigerians should know that, too. That is accountability before power, rather than accountability only after power has been acquired.

There is another democratic advantage. Announcing the team early would crowdsource due diligence. Nigeria has millions of citizens at home and abroad who possess institutional memory, professional expertise, and local knowledge. Publish a name, and Nigerians will scrutinize it.

Who is this person? What has this person accomplished? Which institutions has this person led? What happened at those institutions? What is this person’s professional reputation? Has this person been implicated in corruption? Are the credentials genuine? Are there unexplained conflicts of interest? Are there FBI records that could prevent this person from attending international summits in New York or Washington, DC? Does this person possess the temperament and competence required for the proposed office?

Instead of discovering damaging information after someone has been sworn into office, uncover it before the election. Give Nigerians time and opportunity to vet the people who would govern them. If credible evidence emerges showing a proposed nominee is unsuitable, replace the nominee and explain why. Correcting a mistake before assuming office is not embarrassing. Indeed, the willingness to withdraw a questionable nomination would itself demonstrate something important about the proposed government’s standards. The Nigerian people would become participants in assembling the administration. That is not merely transparency. That is participatory governance before inauguration.

Here is where this proposal could become genuinely nation-building. Build the team deliberately around three principles: competence, character, and inclusion. Nigeria should not have to choose between federal character and excellence. With more than 200 million people, 36 states, the Federal Capital Territory, a vast diaspora, and extraordinary talent scattered across professions and continents, the proposition that national inclusion necessarily requires sacrificing competence should be rejected.

The talent exists. Find it. Search local and foreign universities, businesses, hospitals, laboratories, the military, civil society, technology companies, the professions, the public service, and the Nigerian diaspora. Identify accomplished Nigerians who have never held political office.

Find the 38-year-old engineer solving problems somewhere Abuja has never heard of. Find the brilliant woman running an institution without political connections. Find the young economist whose competence has never been rewarded with a government appointment. Find the cybersecurity expert. Find the agricultural innovator. Find the public health specialist. Find the ethical police officer. Find the military strategist. Find the scientist. Find the teacher. Find the entrepreneur. Find Nigerians whose main qualification isn’t knowing somebody important. Then build a government that looks like Nigeria.

North and South. East and West. Muslim and Christian. Women and men. Young Nigerians alongside seasoned veterans. Every geopolitical zone meaningfully represented – not merely ceremonially. Federal character should not be an excuse for mediocrity, and merit should not be an excuse for sectional domination. Nigeria is large enough and talented enough to achieve both excellence and inclusion.

I would go further. Make this a government of generational renewal. Not youth for youth’s sake. Competence must remain non-negotiable. But there are Nigerians in their thirties and forties who manage complex corporations, build technology companies, practice medicine at extraordinary levels, conduct world-class research, command sophisticated organizations, and succeed internationally. Yet when governments are formed, Nigeria too often acts as though national leadership belongs permanently to a narrow political class.

Break that cycle. Give younger Nigerians consequential responsibilities – not decorative “youth” portfolios. Let them manage money, infrastructure, and technology. Let them participate in national security. Let them reform institutions. Let them sit at the table where consequential decisions are made. A country whose median citizen is young cannot indefinitely treat youth as spectators in the government of their own future. Give young Nigerians a government they can see themselves in.

Do the same for women. Do not promise gender inclusion in a manifesto and then negotiate it away after the election. Put it in writing beforehand. Let Nigerians see women proposed for some of the most consequential offices in the federation. Security. Finance. Justice. Foreign Affairs. Infrastructure. Technology. Health. Education. Industry.

The question should never be whether women have been “given enough positions.” The question should be whether the government has searched the full Nigerian talent pool rather than effectively limiting itself to half of it. So, make gender equity visible before election day.

Another enormous advantage of announcing the team before the election would be that nobody could argue afterward that appointments were rewards for regions that delivered votes. The appointments – or, more accurately, the intended nominations – would already have been announced before anyone knew how any state voted. That matters. A president is not the president of the states that voted for him. He is President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

If a proposed Obi administration is unveiled before election day, with credible Nigerians drawn from across the federation, then Sokoto is already represented before Sokoto votes. Enugu is represented before Enugu votes. Lagos is represented before Lagos votes. Borno is represented before Borno votes. Rivers is represented before Rivers votes. No state would need to earn its citizenship by producing a particular percentage of votes.

Let there be no “95 percent and five percent” Nigeria. Nigeria would be on the ticket before Nigeria votes. That would send a powerful message after years in which federal appointments have repeatedly sparked debates about regional inclusion and exclusion, and the meaning of federal character.

There is another implication – perhaps the most important. Destroy the appointment marketplace before it opens. Announcing a substantial portion of the government before the election would make it harder to turn public appointments into post-election political currency. Nigerians are familiar with the suspicion that appointments can become rewards for campaign financing, defections, political bargaining, godfatherism, or other forms of patronage. So close that marketplace before it opens.

Tell political investors that no ministries are for sale here. Tell political godfathers that no agencies are being held in reserve for them. Tell wealthy donors that their contribution does not buy a government appointment. Tell party chieftains that Nigeria’s institutions are not post-election souvenirs. If the principal members of the proposed government have already been publicly identified on the basis of competence, integrity, national balance, and capacity, the scope for transactional bargaining after victory narrows considerably. That would give practical meaning to the promise that government will not be cash-and-carry.

This proposal is not merely a campaign strategy. It is a governing strategy. It would mean governing from day one. Nigeria’s sprawling problems will not wait politely while a new president spends months searching for ministers, assembling teams, reconciling competing political interests, and deciding who should run critical institutions.

The bad economy will still be there on inauguration morning. So will insecurity. So will unemployment. So will electricity shortages. So will infrastructure deficits. So will the debt burden. So will inflation and the pressures facing Nigerian households. A government that has substantially identified its leadership team before the election can spend the transition period on something more valuable than distributing appointments. It can prepare to govern.

Teams can begin studying their sectors. Policy priorities can be refined. Implementation plans can be prepared. Overlapping mandates can be identified. The first 100-day program can be translated from campaign rhetoric into operational plans. Potential ministers can understand how their portfolios align with the administration’s broader objectives.

The economic team already knows the security team’s priorities. The infrastructure team can coordinate with the finance team. Agriculture can coordinate with trade. Education can coordinate with technology and labor. Instead of assembling the orchestra after inauguration, the musicians would already know the score. Nigeria does not need another administration that spends its opening months forming a government. Nigeria needs one prepared to begin governing.

I would add one more innovation. Do not merely publish names. Publish the criteria used to select them. For each proposed appointee, provide a concise public dossier: professional qualifications, relevant experience, major accomplishments, proposed responsibility, state and geopolitical zone, and, where appropriate, declarations of conflicts of interest and commitments to applicable ethics and asset-disclosure requirements.

Then publish the composition of the proposed government as a whole. How many women? How many younger Nigerians? How many from each geopolitical zone? How many career professionals? How many political figures? How many people coming directly from outside government? Make transparency measurable. And where a nominee requires Senate or National Assembly confirmation, state it plainly: “Proposed nominee, subject to the procedures required by the Constitution and laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” This would preserve institutional boundaries while maintaining political commitment.

Naturally, no responsible president should surrender the ability to reorganize the government. Circumstances change. People underperform. New challenges arise. Cabinets are reshuffled. Officials resign. Some nominees may fail confirmation or become unavailable. Therefore, the published team should not be presented as immutable for four years. Present it as the administration’s starting covenant with Nigerians. Whenever replacements become necessary, preserve the principles behind the original arrangement: competence, integrity, federal character, gender inclusion, and national cohesion. The names may change. The standard should not.

Mr. Obi, imagine the presidential campaign after such an announcement. Political debate would have to move beyond slogans. Nigerians could compare proposed economic teams. They could scrutinize prospective security leadership. Professional associations could examine nominees relevant to their sectors. Civil society could investigate records. Journalists could interview proposed ministers. Universities could host policy debates on the qualifications and ideas of those who might soon manage major sectors of the country. Suddenly, an election becomes less about personalities and more about competing governments.

Place your proposed government alongside the incumbent government and invite Nigerians to compare them. Do not limit the comparison to Peter Obi versus Bola Tinubu, or to one vice-presidential candidate versus another. Expand the comparison board. Place your proposed Minister of Finance alongside the incumbent Minister of Finance. Place your proposed Minister of Defense alongside the incumbent Minister of Defense. Place your proposed Attorney-General alongside the incumbent Attorney-General. Place your proposed ministers responsible for power, education, health, agriculture, works, industry, and the digital economy alongside those currently occupying those offices. Which sober man or woman will replace the current minister for the Federal Capital Territory?

Do the same, where appropriate, for the leadership of the armed forces, law enforcement, and security institutions. Do the same for major commissions, boards, regulatory bodies, and federal agencies. If you intend a different kind of professional leadership, show Nigerians what that alternative would look like. Then let the comparison proceed on matters Nigerians can actually examine: qualifications, experience, professional record, integrity, accomplishments, diversity, generational representation, and demonstrated capacity for the particular assignment.

That changes what an opposition campaign means. Instead of simply saying, “We can govern differently,” you would say, “Here are the people with whom we propose to govern differently. Examine them against those currently doing these jobs.” Imagine a nationally televised policy forum in which Nigerians are not merely watching presidential candidates trade campaign promises but are examining the records and ideas of the people proposed to manage the economy, security, power, health, education, and infrastructure.

Imagine the comparison board: Their economic team – busy bankrupting the country. Your proposed economic team. Their security leadership – more like an insecurity team. Your proposed security leadership. Their sinister ministers. Your proposed ministers. Their agency leadership. Your proposed agency leadership. The opposition would no longer be selling an abstraction called change. It would present Nigerians with an identifiable alternative government whose personnel could be scrutinized before power changed hands.

The comparison must remain substantive. It should not devolve into a parade of insults or personalities. Compare records, qualifications, ideas, performance, integrity, and preparedness. Compare EFCC and FBI records. Let the evidence speak.

That would raise the stakes for your selections. You could not simply nominate loyalists and ask Nigerians to applaud merely because they belong to the opposition. Every name you announce would have to withstand public scrutiny. Every nominee would become part of your argument that a different quality of government is possible. If you are asking Nigerians to replace a government, show them the government you propose to replace it with.

That may be one of the most significant consequences of publishing the team before the election. It expands democratic comparison beyond the two names most prominently printed on the presidential ticket. Nigeria would no longer be choosing merely between presidential candidates. Nigerians would be comparing governments.

That would be a profound change in Nigerian politics. We routinely demand that presidential candidates publish manifestos. But policies do not implement themselves. Why should Nigerians see the proposed policies without seeing the people proposed to execute them? Show us the plan – and show us the team.

Presidential leadership has an overlooked dimension. A president is, in part, a recruiter. Perhaps one of his most consequential abilities is his capacity to identify extraordinary people, persuade them to serve, and place them where their abilities can produce results. Therefore, let recruitment itself be part of the presidential examination.

A candidate who cannot assemble an impressive prospective government before an election gives voters information. A candidate who surrounds himself with compromised politicians gives voters information. A candidate whose appointments reveal ethnic imbalance gives voters information. A candidate who talks about youth but presents the same aging political establishment gives voters information. A candidate who talks about women’s participation but cannot identify outstanding women for consequential positions gives voters information. And a candidate who searches across Nigeria and the diaspora and produces an exceptional, diverse, and credible team also gives voters information. Let personnel be evidence.

Why am I proposing this to you, Mr. Obi? I am making this proposal to you because your political brand has rested substantially on the argument that Nigeria can depart from established habits of governance – that public resources should be accounted for, leadership should be subjected to scrutiny, and government should be run with greater discipline. Take that philosophy one radical step further. Do not ask Nigerians merely to trust what you will do after receiving their votes. Show your hand before they give you those votes. That is the democratic bargain I am proposing.

Tell Nigerians: Here is the government I intend to form. Here are the people I intend to entrust with your security. Here are the people I intend to entrust with your economy. Here are the people I intend to entrust with justice and law enforcement. Here are the people I intend to entrust with your children’s education, your hospitals, your electricity, your infrastructure, and your country’s future. Examine them. Investigate them. Question them. Challenge them. And then judge me, in part, by the people I have chosen.

That would require courage because transparency always carries risk. A hidden appointment cannot be criticized before an election, but a published nominee can. Yet that vulnerability is precisely what would make the exercise meaningful. You would voluntarily surrender one of the great advantages corrupt politicians traditionally reserve for themselves: the ability to keep voters ignorant of important decisions until after their votes are secured.

Nigeria has experimented with many campaign innovations. Try a governance innovation. Offer Nigerians something they have rarely, if ever, been offered at this scale: the opportunity to examine not merely the man seeking the presidency, but the government he proposes to lead. Make the 2027 election a referendum not simply on Peter Obi, but on an identifiable program and team.

Put competence beside federal character. Put youth beside experience. Put women beside men. Put North beside South. Put professionals beside political leaders. Put integrity above patronage. And put all of them before the Nigerian people before the first ballot is cast.

Nigeria does not lack brilliant people. It suffers, among other things, from a political system that too often allows election winners (read riggers) to decide afterward – behind closed doors – who gets the privilege of governing everyone else. Change that. Open the doors before the election. Replace post-election patronage appointments with pre-election accountability. Turn voters from spectators waiting to discover their government into citizens invited to scrutinize it beforehand.

And perhaps most importantly, demonstrate something Nigerians desperately need to see: a candidate so prepared to govern that he can show the country not only where he wants to take it but also the people he intends to take there with him.

Mr. Obi, do something different. Do something audacious. Publish the government before Nigerians vote. Let Nigerians vet your team. Let Nigerians judge your judgment. Then let Nigerians make their choice.

Godspeed!

Dr. Vitus Ozoke is a lawyer, human rights activist, and public affairs analyst based in the United States. He writes on politics, governance, and the moral costs of leadership failure in Africa.