Nigeria, July 13 -- By the time Nigerians file into polling units in 2027, the most consequential battle for the nation's democracy may already have been fought - and perhaps won or lost. Elections are merely democracy's public ceremony, the visible culmination of political choices shaped long before the first ballot is cast. The real test of democratic health lies elsewhere: in the independence of institutions, the conduct of political actors, the resilience of the rule of law, the protection of dissent, and the willingness of those entrusted with power to submit themselves to the same constitutional restraints they expect others to obey.

It is in these quiet, often-overlooked arenas - not on election day-that democracies either flouris...