Deconstructing Nigeria
Oseloka Obaze

End Weaponised Governance

June 1, 2025
4 mins read

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is a cliché which might have lost its instructive value in contemporary governance. This is more so, as some serving national leaders are exhibiting their true colours; while masking as democrats. “Power reveals who a leader is.”

As evinced in some countries, we’ve witnessed blurred definitional lines between democratic leaders and unmasked autocratic leaders. Arguably, integrity or corruption is habitual default for power wielders.

Join our WhatsApp Channel

Nigeria confronts a national crisis and a peacetime existential threat. Governance has been extremely ethnified and weaponized. Of that, there is no debate, despite expedient rationalizations. Happenings in Nigeria are dreadfully peculiar. The situation needs to be remedied urgently. In whole or in parts, Nigeria is in deep trouble. As such, there can be no conscientious objectors to the rescue mission, which must start now.

Northern Nigeria is a mess. There is insecurity, poverty, communal conflicts, and food crisis in the three zones of the monolithic North, where banditry, insurgency and ungoverned spaces are also rife. The disappearance of the hides and skins industries, the groundnut pyramids, renowned textiles and tin ore industries, and now, the farms that were erstwhile national food basket were not orchestrated by outsiders. Kano once produced canned Jollof rice and egusi soup. Not anymore! It’s incumbent on the Northern leaders past and present to accept responsibility for such expansive crisis. Remediation will start with Northern leaders accepting their fault. Their blame game is defeatist.

South-Eastern Nigeria is in a morass; and fraught with insecurity, criminality and a bested mindset. Its commerce suffers immeasurably. Its industries have collapsed or moved to safer climes. Her financial capital, clout and culture have taken flight and are now domiciled outside the zone. The incumbent governors are all too knowing, to heed counsel or show humility. They rule, but hardly govern. They have not managed indigenous recidivism well. They seem averse to joint-ventures and working cohesively in the interest of the zone. The moneybags from the zone contribute vicariously to the present impasse. They tend to equate personal wellbeing and purchased security to collective wellbeing and collective security. That disposition is most insidious. The zone is literarily deserted. It’s now a charnel house –a necropolis– where only the courageous return only to bury their dead.

The South-South zone, suffers from leadership schizophrenia. Unarguably, the richest of the six geo-political zones, it is blighted by environmental despoilment and mired in underdevelopment. Their past leaders frittered away their commonwealth while chasing elusive power at the centre. The citizens are neither allowed to enjoy their rightful oil wealth or to peaceably govern themselves. The zone is collectively worse off for it. Their mercenaries masking as key stakeholders, are neither good leaders nor good citizens.

READ ALSO: Nigeria: We Need A Leader With Transformative Mindset – Amb. Obaze

South-Western Nigeria is now in-charge of national leadership. It suffers from insularity complex. Most regrettably, their understanding of national leadership bona fides, credentials and focus, negates the core leadership values and vision of Obafemi Awolowo and the inherent pragmatism that guided Olusegun Obasanjo to lead Nigeria, as a soldier and then as a civilian president. The present South-Western-led national government has weaponized governance as never before. The utmost danger is inherent in the prevailing delusional pretenses and deafening silence from that zone. The road to perdition has never been so apparent.

READ ALSO: Nigeria’s Canticles Of Hopelessness

The Tinubu-Shettima government has been in office for two years. During that period, we have watched the Nigerian federation mentally, physically and progressively fractionize, as equity and national unity were without any caution thrown to the winds. Evidently, those who contrived the APC tag-team sold Nigerians a dummy. Acceptably, the atrocious eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari were foundational to the present governance rut and retrogression. But Nigerians can’t forget that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had promised that he would continue where Buhari stopped. In that regard, he has kept faith.

Ironically, the select coterie of roguish cohorts and beneficiaries of the present Malgovernance, who emanate from the seven political zones, pretend that all is well. It can’t be so. Let’s speak truth to power before its way too late.

READ ALSO: Implications Of Not Prioritising National Interest

Right now, Nigeria ticks off well on the list of indices of bad governance, notably: deception, corruption, insecurity, illiberalism, iniquitous policies, criminality, incapacitated police force, ineffective legislature and judiciary, absence of checks and balances and utter disregard for the rule of law. Nigeria has been calculatedly plunged into a debt peonage. Nationwide, most of our youths are not in employment, education or training.

Our urban agglomerations are increasingly decrepit and burdened by rural migration and unemployment pressures. This, like grazing areas has become sources of inter-communal internecine strife. The discontent and disenfranchisement of the national population is pronounced and humongous. APC’s promise of “renewed hope” is proscriptive and has come to naught. Certainly, there can be no part two to that promise.

As is routine, we have entered yet another cyclical season when strange political bedfellows pally around. They do so supposedly on non-partisan basis and in the name of alliances. But individual or primordial interests and staying politically relevant is their raison d’être. Yet, there are universal nation-building and national interest issues that are not being proactively addressed. If Nigeria implodes, we all lose. Somalia and Libya’s fate will be child’s play. The regional and geo-strategic implications will be immense. A failed Nigeria would also be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Nigeria needs bold nation-building and redemptive initiatives. If by 2027 we don’t succeed in changing the present APC leadership and government constitutionally, with a view to putting Nigeria back on the trajectory of good governance, we may not have a country thereafter.

READ ALSO: Good Governance Isn’t Rocket Science 

Under our present circumstances, from 2027 going forward requires a fit-for-purpose nationalistic leader; who is elected through a process bereft of traditional emotionalism and based on equity. He or she will need to be supported by our various ethnicities, and a support team of erstwhile rivals for Nigeria to be governed purposefully and equitably. The mixed political configuration of South Africa’s present government is a good example. Therefore, we must constitutionally bring an end the APC government, which like no other before -military or civilian- has effectively weaponized governance to the detriment of the national population. The task won’t easy: but it’s a doable national imperative.

Nigeria has its fractured history. But it is a multiparty democracy, not a one-party state. As such, it can ill-afford to remain the extremely fractured nation it has become. The choice of where we go from here is clear. The path we toe eventually will depend on hard choices. As a federated nation, we must either choose to be parochial and myopic, or sufficiently bold to seize the moment and remain one country.

As to purpose, it remains unclear if it is indifference or incompetence that drives Tinubu’s administration lackluster performance that is running Nigeria to the ground. But this much is clear: purpose has no expiry date. For that singular reason, it’s time to end this weaponized governance. There must be an endpoint to this “insanity that decays the wise.”

Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance and  management consulting firm in Awka.

Oseloka H. Obaze
+ posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Latest from Opinion