Imperial Governor: When executive power becomes a license to loot

By The Conscience Chronicler

There is a curious transformation that occurs the moment a Nigerian governor crosses the threshold of the Government House. The man who once stood under the scorching sun, sweating through three layers of agbada, pressing flesh with market women and begging okada riders for their votes — that man disappears. In his place emerges an emperor.

Not a public servant bound by oath and constitution, but a sovereign unto himself, accountable to no one, approachable by none, answerable only to the whispers of his own ambition.

This is not hyperbole. This is the lived reality of governance across 36 states of the Nigerian federation. Human rights lawyer Deji Adeyanju put it with devastating precision: Nigerian democracy is “hollow at the state level,” with governors running their states “like private estates with little or no accountability”.

Former INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega, a man who has observed Nigerian democracy from its highest vantage point, recently lamented that “those elected to protect democracy have become its greatest threat”. The ritual of elections continues — the campaigns, the handovers, the victory speeches — but the substance of democracy has evaporated. And at the heart of this evaporation is a single, unforgivable betrayal: the governor who promised to serve has chosen to rule.

The architecture of this betrayal is not accidental. It is deliberately constructed. The Nigerian Constitution vests enormous powers in state governors — powers over appointments, budgets, security votes, local government allocations, and a sprawling network of parastatals. The governor appoints the heads of the Civil Service Commission, the State Independent Electoral Commission, and the Judicial Service Commission. He controls the flow of federal allocations.

He determines which contracts are awarded, to whom, and at what price. In theory, these powers are checked by the legislature, the judiciary, and the citizens. In practice, the checks have been systematically dismantled.

Consider the legislature. Inibehe Effiong, a Nigerian lawyer, declared on national television that governors are “more dictatorial than the President,” and that “there is no House of Assembly in Nigeria today that can hold a governor accountable, not one”. This is not a partisan complaint. It is a professional observation from a legal practitioner who has watched state assemblies transform from watchdogs into lapdogs.

The few legislators who exhibit independence are swiftly removed by their colleagues, who understand that loyalty to the governor is the only currency that matters. As a Punch editorial noted, state legislatures have become mere “rubber stamps” for executive fiat, with any lawmaker showing “spunk” dutifully removed to please the governor.

The consequences of this legislative paralysis are catastrophic. In Zamfara State, ten lawmakers were suspended for raising concerns about deteriorating security and poor governance. In Benue State, the legislature has allegedly been sidelined entirely, reduced to a ceremonial role while the governor operates unilaterally.

The Coalition for Democratic Governance in Africa has warned that these governors are acting as “sole administrators under a democratic guise,” governing by decree while continuing to access public funds without legislative oversight. Without legislative scrutiny, budgets can be inflated, contracts awarded without due process, and public funds mismanaged without consequences.

The pattern of executive overreach extends far beyond the legislature. Deputy governors, those constitutional functionaries intended to provide both continuity and a check on executive power, have been systematically humiliated and discarded across the federation. In Edo State, Governor Godwin Obaseki locked his deputy out of his office and waged a relentless campaign to prevent him from succeeding him.

In Ondo State, the House of Assembly commenced impeachment proceedings against the then Deputy Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, his real offence being his suspected desire to succeed his ailing principal.

In Kogi State, a court quashed the impeachment of Deputy Governor Simon Achuba, but the damage was already done. In Imo State, Deputy Governor Eze Madumere was impeached after a clash with Governor Rochas Okorocha over his ambition to succeed him, the governor preferring his own son-in-law. These are not isolated incidents. They are a systematic pattern: governors who tolerate no succession plan except the one they control.

The media has fared no better. In Niger State, Governor Mohammed Umar Bago unilaterally shut down Badeggi Radio, bypassing legally established procedures and drawing sharp condemnation from the Nigerian Guild of Editors. In Benue State, Governor Hyacinth Alia, a Roman Catholic priest-turned-politician, issued a warning to former governor and presidential candidate Peter Obi, effectively barring him from visiting internally displaced persons without written permission from the state. A citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria requiring state permission to visit fellow citizens displaced by terror; this is not democracy. It is a preview of authoritarianism.

But the most insidious manifestation of this imperial governorship is not visible in public confrontations with legislatures or the media. It operates in the shadows, through the silent circulation of memos and directives. The governor no longer needs to argue, persuade, or defend. He signs.

A directive to the Commissioner for Finance: transfer funds. A memo to the Accountant-General: release allocations. A signed instruction to a parastatal board: approve this contract, appoint this crony, award this land.

The commissioners, many of them appointees who owe their positions entirely to the governor’s pleasure, become mere signatories to executive will. The treasury becomes a personal account. The state becomes a fiefdom.
This is what the EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, recently exposed: security votes have become “governors’ slush funds,” with billions siphoned abroad monthly. The security vote, a line item intended to fund covert operations against bandits and terrorists, has been repurposed as a governor’s discretionary slush fund, unaccountable to any legislature, unauditable by any agency, untouchable by any law. In this arrangement, the commissioner for security signs whatever memo the governor places before him. The question is to be replaced.

The immunity clause, enshrined in Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution, is the final pillar of this imperial architecture. Originally intended to protect high office holders from frivolous litigation, it has become, in Jega’s words, “a protective shield for corruption and abuse”. Under this provision, governors know that for four or eight years, they are above the law. They can loot, manipulate institutions, and trample on rights without consequence. The clause has turned the governorship into a license for impunity. And the citizens who elected them have no recourse until the governor leaves office. By this time, the loot has been laundered, the witnesses silenced, and the statute of limitations weaponised.

The path forward requires a fundamental reimagining of the governorship itself. The immunity clause must be expunged. Jega has repeatedly called for this, insisting that “real-time accountability should apply to all public officers regardless of the ranks”. A governor who knows he can be prosecuted while in office will govern differently. A governor who knows that an independent judiciary can scrutinise every transfer, every contract, and every appointment will think twice before signing that directive.

But removing immunity is only the beginning. The legislature must be reclaimed from executive capture. This requires electoral reforms that ensure state houses of assembly are not mere appendages of the governor’s party machine. It requires citizens to pay attention to local elections, to vote for legislators who demonstrate independence, and to hold those legislators accountable when they betray their mandate. It requires the judiciary to enforce separation of powers consistently, not selectively.

The media must also be strengthened and protected. The Freedom of Information Act must be fully enforced, and government agencies that violate it should face meaningful sanctions. Journalists who expose executive overreach must be protected, not harassed. Civil society organisations must be empowered to monitor state governance, to publish scorecards, and to name and shame. The EFCC and ICPC must be insulated from political interference, empowered to investigate governors while they are still in office, and protected from the kind of coordinated attacks that 19 state governors launched against the EFCC about a year ago.

Finally, citizens must abandon the culture of deference that enables imperial governors. The man who once campaigned in your living room now refuses to receive your delegation. The woman who once promised to be your voice now screens your calls. This is not acceptable. Citizens must form independent monitoring groups, demand town hall meetings, use social media to document unfulfilled promises, and, most importantly, refuse to re-elect governors who disappear into the Government House and never emerge.

The Conscience Chronicler calls on every Nigerian citizen to recognise that the imperial governor is not an inevitable feature of our democracy. He is a failure of our democracy. He exists because we have permitted him to exist; because we have re-elected him; because we have not held his commissioners accountable; because we have accepted memos and directives as governance rather than demanding open deliberations and public debates.

President Bola Tinubu, himself a former governor who once wielded these same imperial powers, has a unique responsibility to dismantle the system that produced him. He must champion the removal of the immunity clause. He must ensure that federal agencies like the EFCC and ICPC are empowered to investigate state governors without fear or favour. He must resist the temptation to use state governors as political tools and instead hold them accountable as public servants. The president who once fought for democracy must now fight for democratic governance, not just in Abuja, but in every state capital.

The governors reading this piece, past, present, and future, should know that the increasingly aware citizens see you. We see the commissioner waiting outside your office for three hours only to receive a signed directive. We see the legislator who was promised a contract in exchange for loyalty. We see the citizen who cannot reach you, whose letter remains unanswered, whose complaint is ignored. You have mistaken executive power for executive privilege. You have forgotten that the word “executive” derives from “to execute” — to carry out, to implement, to serve. It does not mean to rule. It does not mean to loot. It does not mean to disappear from those being represented.

Executive power without executive responsibility is not governance. It is roguishness. And the Nigerian people have had enough of rogues.