The recent internal combustion within the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has stripped away the final layer of pretense from Nigeria’s political elite. It has exposed, in its most naked and ugly form, a truth we have long suspected but often ignored: our “leaders” are obsessed with the throne, while the people they claim to lead are nothing more than footstools.
When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) moved against certain elements of the ADC leadership, we witnessed a rare miracle. Men who usually find it impossible to agree on the color of the sky suddenly found “unity.” Heavyweights like Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, David Mark, and Rauf Aregbesola—men who represent the various factions of our failed political experiments—descended upon Abuja. They marched, they protested, and they shouted about “defending democracy” until their voices cracked.
But let us hold a mirror to this sudden “activism” and ask the biting questions that these men would rather avoid: Where was this militant energy when bandits were turning the Northwest into a graveyard? Where were these bold marches when kidnapping became a booming national industry, and parents were forced to sell their last possessions to ransom their children? Where was this “defense of the people” when the removal of the fuel subsidy, handled with such callous incompetence, plunged millions of Nigerians into a pit of multi-dimensional poverty?
The silence was—and remains—deafening. When the common man cries out in hunger, these politicians offer “press statements” issued by bored aides. When villages are razed, they offer “condolences” from the comfort of their bulletproof SUVs. But the moment a political platform—a vehicle for their 2027 ambitions—is threatened, they suddenly remember how to walk the streets.
The tragedy of the Nigerian political landscape is its total lack of soul. There is no ideology; there is only interest. These men are political nomads, wandering from PDP to APC, and now nesting in the ADC, not because they have discovered a new way to save Nigeria, but because they have found a new way to save themselves.
They are birds of a feather, flying in a formation of greed. They romance power with the desperation of a jilted lover. To them, “democracy” is not about the welfare of the citizen; it is a game of musical chairs where the only rule is to make sure you have a seat when the music stops.
If the pursuit of power requires dancing naked in the market square, make no mistake: these men would strip in a heartbeat and call it a ‘sacrifice for the nation.
Whether the banner says APC, PDP, or ADC, the faces remain the same tired relics of a system that has failed us for decades. Their battles are not fought in the hospitals that lack medicine or the schools that lack roofs. Their battles are fought in the air-conditioned boardrooms of Abuja, plotting how to recapture the treasury.
The killings, the inflation that has made bread a luxury, and the total collapse of the middle class are mere “externalities” to them. They are focused on the Game of Thrones, and the 2027 season has already begun.
Nigerians must stop being the cheering crowd at their own funeral. We must wake up to the reality that our political class is a unified cartel of self-interest. They are only “united” when their access to the national cake is at stake.
Until we stop celebrating these seasonal activists and start demanding leaders whose hearts bleed for the poor as much as their feet move for a political party, we will continue to be the victims of their schemes.
This is not just sad; it is a national emergency. It is a betrayal of the highest order. It is the truth—and it is time we faced it.
