There is something profoundly cruel about watching politicians congratulate themselves while the people they govern struggle to eat. A mother measures garri into smaller portions. A father postpones treatment to pay school fees. Somewhere, a politician steps before a microphone and announces that everything is going well.
For whom?
Every day, we hear elaborate explanations of how the country is being managed, but too little acknowledgment of what its mismanagement has cost: livelihoods destroyed, opportunities buried, families scattered and citizens exhausted into accepting survival as an achievement.
The names themselves summon the scale of our betrayed expectations: NNPC, Delta Steel Company, NEPA, the railways, Nigerian National Shipping Line and Nigeria Airways. Across these institutions and their successors lies a history that demands an honest accounting of public investment, failed promises and squandered possibilities. Our federal highways add their own testimony, written in broken journeys, damaged vehicles and lives lost.
Even electoral administration, which should protect the citizen’s power to demand change, suffers whenever people come to regard INEC as an extension of the ruling party. Once confidence in the ballot collapses, frustration loses its peaceful outlet.
Yet citizens must also confront an uncomfortable responsibility. When we exchange our votes for cash or food, we surrender power over decisions that will govern our lives for years.
A cup of garri cannot feed a family through four years of betrayal.
But hunger must never become an excuse to humiliate the hungry. The deepest disgrace belongs to those who exploit deprivation to purchase consent. A politician who benefits from desperation has little incentive to end it. Citizens must recognise that bargain—and refuse to renew it.
Nigeria needs leadership with competence, responsibility and conscience: leaders who measure progress by affordable food, safe roads, functioning hospitals, reliable electricity and credible elections.
Until those realities reach ordinary homes, official applause is an insult to private suffering.
A nation begins to recover when its leaders feel ashamed of the suffering they have learned to explain away.
Chris Okobah PhD
Ward wining author
Please share this article if you believe that a new Nigeria is possible
About the Author
