Abuja — As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections, Nigerian Bishops are stepping up their appeals to the faithful not to remain apathetic, but to take an active part in the electoral process.
"Our lives begin to end when we remain silent about the things that matter. Politics is not about one individual. I call on groups and every Christian to participate in political life," said Bishop Dauwa Yohanna of Kontagora, Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Niger State, on August 10.
Speaking to journalists in Minna, Bishop Yohanna urged Christians to obtain their voter cards, take an active part in political life and vote for the candidates of their choice. "Not voting at all is not a protest. It is surrender, which is obviously a defeatist mentality. If you do not vote, you lose the right to complain," Bishop Yohanna warned those who intend to stay away from the polls as a form of protest.
Earlier, the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), Monsignor Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso of Kaduna, issued a statement warning: "Once again, we are approaching the threshold of another decisive period, perhaps the most decisive, in the history of our nation: the 2027 elections."
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"This time, the stakes are higher than usual," he said. "We have already reached a point where poor leadership translates into neglect, lack of accountability, economic decline, religious tensions, insecurity, kidnappings and needless loss of life. We are almost at breaking point." "We cannot afford to make our situation even worse," the CBCN President warned.
Monsignor Ndagoso also expressed concern over the growing disengagement of Nigerians from the electoral process. Citing statistics on the 2023 presidential election released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Archbishop of Kaduna pointed to "growing political apathy". "In a nation of about 250 million people, there were only 93,469,008 registered voters, representing 37.39% of Nigerians, and only 87,209,007 collected their voter cards."
"Even more worrying: the accredited voters for the 2023 presidential election numbered 25,286,616. If the final results are reliable, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won with 8,794,726 votes. This means that the President of Africa's most populous nation was chosen by 9.41% of registered voters and 3.52% of the population," the CBCN President stressed.
According to Archbishop Ndagoso, the situation risks deteriorating further in the next elections. "As worrying as these figures are, I fear that more and more Nigerians are now becoming disengaged from elections, convinced that their vote no longer matters," he said. "While we cannot ignore the corruption of electoral officials, we must remind ourselves that voting is a fundamental duty of every citizen. It is the way every citizen participates in civil society," the Archbishop stressed.
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Archbishop Ndagoso also warned that citizens' frustration could lead to protests, particularly among young people, as happened in Nepal in September 2025. "I pray that we do not reach such a point," he said, but avoiding it requires "Nigerians to find the courage to vote."
