Nigeria's current state is far from that of a conventional nation. It resembles a simmering pot, fueled by resources extracted from a disoriented populace. This stark metaphor captures the harsh reality of a country burdened by crippling debt, ravaged by corruption, and constrained by excesses across all branches of government.
The Debt Trap and The Infrastructure Void
Both federal and state governments engage in endless borrowing, inflating the nation's debt profile into a monstrous figure of domestic and foreign obligations. The critical question is: what tangible benefits do these loans yield for citizens? The answer is dishearteningly little. Instead of funding infrastructure, schools, hospitals, stable electricity, or motorable roads, the borrowed billions vanish into a deep abyss. They are consumed by politicians' inflated bonuses, excessive perks, padded budgets, and ghost projects.
The consequences are visible everywhere. Highways remain death traps, the national power grid flickers unreliably, and dry water taps in communities serve as sad reminders of neglect. Borrowings intended as economic lifelines have transformed into nooses, tightening around the necks of ordinary Nigerians with every fiscal decision made by the executive.
Corruption as the System's Lifeblood
In Nigeria, corruption is not a temporary ailment to be remedied; it is the very bloodstream of governance. It is widely acknowledged and lamented, yet remains uncorrected because the institutions meant to fight it are often led by its chief perpetrators. Politicians display no shame; they flaunt ill-gotten wealth like badges of honor, cruising in convoys of luxury SUVs with pockets bulging from public funds.
Anti-corruption agencies often bark and bite only in hindsight, their effectiveness blunted by political interference. Even recovered loot is frequently re-looted. A weary populace has resigned to the grim reality that corruption is no longer an anomaly within the system—it is the system itself.
Insecurity as a Political Commodity
The solutions to Nigeria's pervasive insecurity—banditry, insurgency, and kidnapping—are well-known. The strategies and resources exist. Yet, the crises persist and spread like cancer. A primary reason is that many politicians are not merely indifferent; they are often sponsors and beneficiaries. Armed groups become proxies, pawns, and revenue streams in a grim economy of violence.
The blood of citizens becomes the lubricant for political machinery. Every abduction, massacre, and burnt village translates into dividends for those who thrive on chaos. The article references the Offa, Kwara State bank robbery where nearly 40 people were killed. While some suspects were reportedly rounded up, the investigation stream allegedly dried upon the mention of a politician's name, highlighting the deep-seated connections between crime and power.
The cycle of plunder is institutionalized. The executive proposes padded budgets, the legislature approves them, and the people bear the cost. Oversight is mythical, and accountability is a joke. The national budget becomes a shopping list for the political class, with constituency projects often existing only on paper. Funds allocated for a 20-kilometre road repair mysteriously cover the cost of 100 kilometres, with the difference lining private pockets.
Furthermore, lawmaking in Nigeria is treated as a lucrative full-time occupation, not due to workload, but as a license to appropriate billions. Legislators earn obscene packages while university lecturers and doctors are driven abroad by shameful wages. This transforms the legislature from a house of representatives into a chamber of predatory misrepresentatives.
False Hopes and a Fractured Covenant
Some propose restructuring the country into geopolitical zones as a panacea. However, this analysis argues it would merely reorganize the "soup pot" into smaller pots, each controlled by the same political band, now redistributed along ethnic lines. These zones would likely become fiefdoms of exploitation, with the children of today's politicians groomed to inherit and sustain the cycle of plunder.
The perpetual failure of governance has broken the moral covenant between the state and its citizens. When confronted with infrastructural decay, endemic corruption, and the trivialization of public trust, the patriotic invocation of "God bless Nigeria" rings hollow. Citizens cannot sanctify a state that persistently betrays them. This disillusionment fuels a dangerous nostalgia for military intervention or even foreign interference, despite the known risks of authoritarianism and lost sovereignty.
In the grand theatre of Nigeria, the people are perpetual victims: taxed, borrowed against, deceived, and abandoned. Their votes are bought with crumbs, and their futures are mortgaged. Nigeria is the pot, the politicians are the cooks and diners, and the broth—spiced with corruption and thickened with insecurity—is poisonous to the masses. Every spoonful consumed by the elite diminishes a life, extinguishes a dream, and betrays a hope.
Nigeria today is a nation consumed by its leaders, where debt is the anthem, corruption is the creed, and insecurity is a lucrative side hustle. Until this pot is shattered and the cooks are expelled, the country will remain a republic of ruin, where the only thriving industry is the politics of plunder.
This analysis is based on the work of Sulaiman Salawudeen, an essayist and polemicist.
