By Chris Okobah
The tragedy of governance in Nigeria lies not only in the staggering corruption but in
the systematic betrayal of public trust by those elected to serve. It is a country where leadership wears the cloak of power but strips itself of duty, and nowhere is this more evident than in the healthcare hypocrisy at the highest levels of power.
Over ₦3.9 billion was reportedly allocated to the Aso Rock Clinic, a facility meant to serve the Commander-in-Chief and senior government officials. Yet, in a harrowing irony, former President Muhammadu Buhari spent months abroad seeking medical treatment, and ultimately, he died far from the very facility built for him. Before him, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua also died outside the country while in search of life-saving care.
If those who control the nation’s wealth have no faith in the systems they create, what fate awaits the average Nigerian—who cannot afford a passport, let alone a plane ticket to London or Berlin?
Our roads are not just in poor condition—they are death traps. Our hospitals are not places of healing—they are graveyards of neglect. Our classrooms have transformed into zones of ignorance, producing more disillusion than knowledge. The judiciary has become a bazaar of influence, where justice is traded like merchandise, and the civil service, once a tool of national progress, now functions as an orchestra of futility, inertia, and deceit.
> “ ***In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”**
In Nigeria, truth has become dangerous, while falsehood* wears agbada and occupies high office.
Our security system does not instill confidence—it induces fear. The very agencies tasked with protecting citizens have become reactive forces, riddled with internal decay and political manipulation.
This is not merely bad governance; it is a carefully constructed dystopia—a nation ruled by elites who thrive in chaos and maintain power through deliberate dysfunction.
> “ *Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice* can have* .”
That is Nigeria’s reality today—a country where power is in the hands of the ignorant, and justice is at the mercy of the highest bidder.
What we are witnessing is not accidental—it is man-made, greed-fueled national collapse. Our past has been hijacked, ourc present is riddled with rot, and our future is being mortgaged by men who treat leadership as conquest.
Until we break this cycle of silence, impunity, and deliberate decay, Nigeria will remain not a failing state, but a functioning dystopia, skillfully designed to benefit the few while enslaving the many.
Chris Okobah Ph.D