Nigeria’s public officials are increasingly losing touch with the very citizens they are elected to serve. Instead of acting as custodians of public trust, many now carry themselves like untouchable overlords arrogant, dismissive, and disturbingly convinced of their own infallibility.
The Nigerian citizen is no longer treated as the centre of governance but as an inconvenience, spoken to with contempt and ruled without empathy or accountability.
Even more troubling is the gradual weaponisation of hunger as a tool of political control. By sustaining mass poverty, leaders blunt critical thinking and reduce daily existence to a desperate struggle for survival. In such a climate, crumbs are distributed and hailed as generosity, when in reality they are carefully calculated instruments of manipulation designed to pacify, exploit, and ultimately discard the people.
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This abuse of power exposes a leadership culture that has dangerously dehumanised the citizenry. When those in authority no longer see the people as deserving of dignity, opportunity, or a decent standard of living, governance becomes cruel, transactional, and morally bankrupt.
If this trend continues unchecked, Nigeria risks entrenching a generation of leaders devoid of compassion and conscience, presiding over a society numbed by hardship and stripped of hope. History shows that no nation thrives when its leaders rule with arrogance and indifference to human suffering.
As the saying goes, a word is enough for the wise.
Written by Festus Edovia, ANIPR, FICM.
