Eight states are too dangerous for campaigning, according to some senators. They were not too dangerous to elect the people who left them that way.

The Nigerian Senate is considering suspending political campaigns in eight northern states ahead of the 2027 elections. The proposal targets Borno, Plateau, Bauchi, Benue, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, and parts of Kano. The justification is insecurity. The logic is that violence in those states is so severe that political gatherings cannot be safely held.

That is true. The violence is real. Borno has been living with insurgency for fifteen years. Plateau recorded some of the worst intercommunal attacks in recent history. Bandits have made roads in Niger and Kebbi impassable. The senator who raised the proposal, Abdul Ningi of Bauchi Central, is right that insecurity is a genuine problem in these states.

What he has not explained is how removing the right to vote solves it.

Here is how it works. Nigeria's electoral law gives the Senate and the executive significant discretion over when and where elections can be held. A suspension of campaigns is not the same as cancelling an election, technically. But campaigns shape elections. Silencing the opposition in a region before voting begins tilts the contest before a single ballot is cast. The states being discussed are not uniformly APC states. Several were central to the 2023 opposition wave. Benue voted for Peter Obi. Plateau leaned opposition. Bauchi has a PDP governor.

This is not a coincidence worth ignoring.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, now an ADC chieftain, was first out publicly. He described the proposal as a plot to disenfranchise northern voters and warned that insecurity must never become a cover for restricting democratic participation. He's right on the principle. He is also a politician whose own interests in those states are served by keeping campaigns running.

Both things are true.

The historical parallel is 2015. In the weeks before the general election, Boko Haram intensified attacks across the northeast. There were serious discussions about postponing the election in affected states. The Jonathan administration eventually agreed to a six-week postponement of the entire election, nominally on security grounds. The APC, then in opposition, described it as a government attempt to buy time and rig the process. They won anyway. The postponement became a precedent. Every administration since has known it is available.

Now it is available to the APC.

The person without money or lawyers in this story is the voter in Borno State who has been told, effectively, that their state is too broken to be part of democracy. Not too broken to pay taxes. Not too broken to have their sons recruited into the army. Just too broken to let the people who broke it face a proper contest.

Whether the Senate proceeds with the proposal or not, it has already done its work. It has put the idea on the table. It has named the instrument. And in Nigerian politics, once an instrument has been named out loud, it rarely disappears entirely.

The APC presidential primary is on 23 May. The opposition is currently holding summits, consultations, and coalition talks. The question of who gets to campaign where will look very different once those primaries are done. In which states a rally becomes a security risk rather than a democratic right is a decision that will be made after the primary is settled.

That's the thing about suspending democracy for safety. It is always temporary. It just depends who is in charge of deciding when safe enough has arrived.