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PhD of Prince Charles Dickson
There is a particular Nigerian season when potholes become election offices, electric poles become poster stands and every roundabout suddenly gets a new landlord with smiling teeth. The rainy season may fail. The dry season can be punishing. The electricity grid can cough like an old generator. But election poster season never disappoints.
He arrives with a full chest. One morning, you cross a street that has been crying out for rehabilitation since Obasanjo still had the original swagger, and there, standing proudly on the crater, is a politician in agbada promising “Renewed Hope”, “New Dawn”, “Bigger Tomorrow”, “New Beginning” or another cleansing-sounding slogan.
You slow down because the road has already taken away your shock absorber. You look up. The man smiles. Her skin is glowing. His cap is balanced. His wife is somewhere in the corner of the poster and seems to symbolize national stability. There is also his deputy, but smaller, because democracy also has a hierarchy. Then the slogan hits you: “Together we will build”. Build what, sir? The road beneath your billboard has already collapsed into archaeological material.
This is the great comedy and tragedy of Nigerian political advertising. The billboard is not simply a sign. It is a national confession. It tells us what the values of our politics are: visibility over service, optics over results, name recognition over moral recognition. It’s the way politicians shout, “Don’t you see my billboard?” as if democracy were now a beauty contest conducted at traffic lights.
Let’s talk about money, because politics without money in Nigeria is just civic poetry. Nigeria’s outdoor advertising market, which includes billboards and outdoor digital displays, is not small. Industry estimates put Nigeria’s OOH and DOOH market at approximately $168.21 million in 2026, with projections to reach $226.38 million by 2031.
At an official exchange rate of ₦1,370 to ₦1,380 per dollar in late April to early May 2026, the 2026 market is roughly in the vicinity of ₦230 billion and more. Not all of this is politics, of course. Banks, telecom companies, real estate companies, churches, concerts, betting companies and drink brands also live on these forums. But as 2027 approaches, political faces will increasingly invade that space like spiritual wallpaper.
The real scandal is that no one can say for sure how much politicians actually spend on billboards. Nigeria has legal spending limits, but the political economy of the countryside moves like smoke through a broken ceiling. Under the 2022 Election Law, the presidential campaign spending ceiling was ₦5 billion, the governorship ₦1 billion, the senatorial ₦100 million, the House of Representatives ₦70 million and the state Assembly ₦30 million.
Recent election monitoring reports and analysis of the Election Law 2026 state that these caps have been increased, with presidential candidates now eligible up to ₦10 billion and gubernatorial candidates up to ₦3 billion.
Now stop there. A presidential candidate can legally spend billions, but the village where his billboard is located may not have water. The state where industrialization promises may not have functioning basic healthcare. The road his smile is mounted on might be one rain shower away from becoming a fish pond. This is not communication. It is a theater whose backdrop is public suffering.
Billboard costs vary greatly. Industry rate cards suggest that static billboards can range from a few hundred thousand naira per month, while digital billboards can run into the millions depending on location, size, traffic and prestige. In Abuja, some large formats are quoted at around ₦1 million to ₦5 million per month, while portals can reach ₦6 million. In Lagos, high-traffic locations can climb even higher, with some digital or mega premium bulletin boards reaching several million per month.
So imagine a serious statewide campaign using dozens or hundreds of billboards in capital cities, highways, markets, intersections and local government headquarters. Add design, printing, agency fees, approvals, transportation, installation, security, refurbishment, LED slots, “support group” branding and those mysterious posters that appear overnight as if pasted by political angels. Suddenly: “Don’t you see my billboard?” becomes “Don’t you see my budget line?”
Yet, what does the billboard actually achieve?
In its most honest form, a billboard creates familiarity. He says: here is the face. Remember this. Associate it with strength, calm, youth, competence, religious balance, ethnic comfort, or any emotional flavoring the countryside chooses. It is not built to explain politics. No one reads a water reform plan while dodging a danfo, a keke, a stray goat and a pothole while performing open heart surgery on the road. Billboards are not for arguing. I’m for the footprint. They tattoo the candidate’s face in public memory.
But here’s the problem. Familiarity is not the same as trust. Recognition is not the same as credibility. A man can be everywhere on billboards and nowhere in government. A woman can have her face at every intersection and yet have no coherent plan beyond “empowerment,” that political word that has suffered more abuse than electoral laughter.
The Nigerian billboard often promises utopia from within dystopia. “Light for All” is mounted in a community charging phones at a barbershop’s generator. “Water is life” is printed above the women carrying yellow jerry cans. “Safety and prosperity” smiles on a road where travelers whisper prayers before embarking on the next stretch. The words “Education first” appear next to a homeless school. You can’t make it up. Nigeria has turned irony into infrastructure.
The data compounds the insult. The National Bureau of Statistics reported in 2022 that about 133 million Nigerians, about 63% of the population, were multidimensionally poor. According to World Bank data, Nigeria’s access to electricity will be 61.2% of the population in 2023, meaning millions of people will be left without reliable energy access. A World Bank Project 2025 document found that around 60 million Nigerians lack access to basic drinking water services. Reports on Nigeria’s road network continue to highlight severe deterioration, especially of rural roads, where one widely cited estimate states that around 87% of the 200,000km rural road network is in poor condition.
In this context, the billboard becomes almost rude. It’s a giant face looking down on citizens whose daily lives are smaller than the politician’s character size. It’s not that campaigns shouldn’t advertise. Democracy requires communication. Candidates must present themselves, sell ideas, mobilize voters, formulate choices and compete in the market of public persuasion. The problem isn’t the billboard itself. The problem is the moral void of billboard politics in a society where public goods are treated as campaign souvenirs.
A billboard should remind you of the performance, not replace it. In a healthy democracy, a candidate’s outdoor advertising points to documents, debates, measurable plans and responsible promises. In our republic of laminated ambitions, many billboards function as political juju: pasting faces, adding slogans, calling on doom, waiting for delegates, influencers, pastors, imams, ethnic champions, youth leaders, women leaders and “critical stakeholders” to begin their seasonal dance.
You’ll hear them say, “His billboard is everywhere. He’s serious.” Serious? My brother, malaria drug posters are also everywhere. Visibility is not vision. A campaign can dominate every intersection and still be intellectually empty. A politician can buy every wall in the city and yet not possess a single serious idea about taxation, policing, education, agricultural value chains, local government financing, gender protection or conflict prevention.
The deeper danger is that billboard politics teaches citizens to confuse presence with ability. Once the face becomes familiar, the mind begins to relax. “At least we know him.” Do you know how? Through PVC or PVC banner? Through performance or Photoshop? Through public documents or public relations? The face on the board is often younger than the politician, quieter than his history, more humble than his convoy and more generous than his budgetary behavior.
That’s why 2027 must not become another carnival of printed deception. Nigerians should develop billboard literacy. When a politician says “New Dawn,” ask yourself: Where is the dawn of politics? When he says “Rescue Mission”, ask: Who damaged the ambulance? When he says “People first,” ask yourself: what people, what budget, what timeline, what institutions, what accountability mechanism? When they say “I come”, ask calmly: come from where, with whom, using whose money and to do what exactly?
Perhaps every election poster should carry a public service warning: This face is not a poster. This smile is not a budget one. This slogan can’t fix your well. Please question before use.
Because ultimately the question isn’t whether we saw the billboard. Yes, we saw it. We saw it at the roundabout. We saw him on the bad track. We saw it next to the dark transformer. We saw it near the abandoned hospital. We saw this above the market where traders pay taxes but do not receive sanitation. We saw it in the village where young people leave because hope has no local address.
The real question is whether the politician saw us.
Have you seen the farmer who cannot move his products because the road has become a punishment? Did you see the widow waiting for water? Did they see unemployed graduates printing their posters for ₦5,000 a day while being promised millions of jobs? Have they seen children studying in the heat because electricity is still a rumor? Did they see the citizens, or just the voters?
So yes, honorable sir, distinguished lady, incoming excellency, would-be messiah of the junction, we do not see your billboard.
Now show us your project and may Nigeria win!
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