Is Nigeria ready for political change? The answer might lie in its infrastructure.

In May, Nigerian political veteran Bola Tinubu was sworn in as president of the country. The outcome was predictable, but that doesn’t mean there were no surprises in this year’s election. The biggest, perhaps, was the national rise of progressive politician Peter Obi. Obi galvanized young people around issues of government accountability, transparency, and generational change. In the process, he came closer to winning the presidency than any third-party candidate has in Nigeria’s modern history.

What to make of Obi’s unexpected performance in this year’s election? And what does it mean for the future of Nigeria, a country of some 220 million people that, by many estimates, will surpass the US as the world’s third most populous country in the coming decades? 

Daniel Jordan Smith is the director of the Watson Institute’s Africa Initiative, and as he explains, there’s one realm where many of the issues Obi ran on come to a head, and that can teach us a lot about the country’s future: its infrastructure. 

Smith’s newest book, “Every Household Its Own Government: Improvised Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Citizens, and the State in Nigeria” explores why Africa’s most populous, economically powerful country fails so many of its citizens when it comes to providing basic services like water and electricity. He also explores the creative ways that citizens work around these shortcomings and how the government still makes itself, as Smith puts it, “present in its absence.”

Learn more about and purchase “Every Household Its Own Government”

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts