A landmark 2026 Social Cohesion Report by the Africa Polling Institute reveals that 77% of Nigerians have no trust in the National Assembly — making it the least trusted institution in the country, overtaking the Nigerian Police Force — while religious and traditional leaders remain the most trusted figures in public life.
Nigeria’s legislators have achieved a dubious historic milestone — they are now officially less trusted than the police.
The Africa Polling Institute dropped its bombshell ‘2026 Social Cohesion Report’ at a National Social Cohesion Dialogue in Abuja over the weekend, and the numbers make for painful reading in the corridors of power.
Vanguard reported that Seventy-seven percent of Nigerians expressed little to no trust in the National Assembly. Seventy-three percent don’t trust the judiciary. And 72% — though improved by 11 percentage points from last year’s crushing 83% — still have little to no faith in President Bola Tinubu’s government.
API Executive Director Prof Bell Ihua made the historic demotion official.
“This assessment places the National Assembly as the least trusted institution in the country, a position previously held by the Police, with 24% trust in the current survey,” he stated.
So who do Nigerians actually trust? Their pastors and their chiefs. Fifty-one percent expressed significant trust in religious leaders and 45% in traditional rulers — dwarfing the 28% who trust the Tinubu government and a mere 23% who trust the National Assembly.
The report, supported by the Ford Foundation and conducted between January and February 2025 across 5,315 face-to-face household interviews in five languages — English, Pidgin, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba — computed Nigeria’s Social Cohesion Index at 48.8%. That’s a 2-percentage-point improvement on last year and the highest recorded since the study began. Still below the 50% threshold, but trending upward.
On national identity, 46% of Nigerians say they feel “truly proud of Nigeria” against 41% who feel genuinely disappointed. And 44% are equally proud of their Nigerian and ethnic identities — a nuanced finding in a country where 29% identify more with ethnicity than nationality.
The data tells a clear story: Nigerians aren’t giving up on their country. They’ve simply given up on their lawmakers.
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