When a super corrupt individual leads and surrounds himself with corrupt people in a corruptly broken system, there will be more rot.
The people who are supposed to fix the system are the same people feeding from it. Why would they kill the cow that is feeding them? Why would they reform a system that made them rich?
Michael Adeboboye
I have been refraining from talking about politics, leadership, and governance in Nigeria for certain reasons. But sometimes, silence becomes too heavy.
When a super corrupt individual leads and surrounds himself with corrupt people in a corruptly broken system, there will be more rot. And fixing the system from the inside becomes impossible.
This is not about one bad decision. It is about a pattern.
He will not appoint people who will challenge him. He will appoint people who will protect him. Loyalty will be rewarded more than competence. Honesty will become a crime. And the institutions that are supposed to check power will be turned into tools to protect power.
Contracts will go to friends, not to the best hands.
Positions will go to loyalists, not to the qualified.
The police, the courts, and the agencies will all learn to look away.
And the ordinary Nigerian will learn a bitter lesson: to survive, you must either join the rot or suffer in silence.
That is the trap.
The people who are supposed to fix the system are the same people feeding from it. Why would they kill the cow that is feeding them? Why would they reform a system that made them rich?
So the rot does not just remain. It deepens. It spreads. It becomes normal.
And in Nigeria, it has gotten worse. The clerics who are supposed to tell the truth now defend corrupt people who lied their way to power. They can no longer speak the truth. The corruption feeds their own institutions too. When the pulpit is bought, who will speak for the people?
Then look at those claiming to lead Nigerians on a rescue mission in the opposition political parties. They are not saviors either. Their selfish agendas can be glimpsed from their actions and activities. It is the same hunger for power, the same desperation for position, the same old game — just different jerseys.
So the people are trapped between a corrupt government, a selfish opposition, and a compromised pulpit in the middle.
We cannot pretend this is leadership. This is not governance. This is organized looting dressed in agbada and suits.
Nigeria does not lack good people. Nigeria lacks a system that allows good people to survive in leadership. Until we break this circle of corrupt leaders protecting corrupt followers, we will keep going in circles — new faces, same rot.
I am not speaking as a politician. I am speaking as a Nigerian who is tired of watching his country bleed while a few people smile.
Read: Nigeria: The Faith on the Ballot
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Michael Adeboboye is the Chairman of Board, Congress of African Journalists – CAJ
