Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the public debate about the phenomenon of fakery and the attendant politics of verification define the future of democracy in Nigeria.

Paper long abstract:

In the early years of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic (1999-), the media revealed significant cases of certificate forgery by highly placed political office holders. The most shocking was the case of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representations, Salisu Buhari, a 29-year-old high school diploma holder who claimed to be a 36-year-old graduate of the University of Toronto, Canada. Buhari’s case became not only an example of the phenomenon of political lives based on false claims and certificate forgeries in the context of Nigeria’s return to democratic rule, it also signaled the politics of veracity in a political culture transformed by, and transfixed in, the martial culture of imposition, falsification and falsehood.

This paper examines how the public debate about the phenomenon of fakery and the attendant politics of verification define the future of democracy in Nigeria. What ‘truths’ about Nigerian politics are evident in this phenomenon of fakery? What does the politics of veracity and its complications say about the future of democracy in Nigeria?