A conversation about why Nigerian politics keeps producing the same candidates led to one question: where exactly does the process go wrong? This is the first investigation in a twelve-part series that follows that question from a ward office in Lagos to election night. One constructed character. One real system. Fully mapped.

PART 1: THE FORM 

Ola returns from Rotterdam with an agricultural proposal, four years of preparation, and a Wageningen partnership letter, and discovers that the ward chairman's first question has nothing to do with any of it.