In feudal Japan, samurai swore absolute loyalty to their liege lords, pledging their swords, and their lives, to protect them. When a lord died or was disgraced, his samurai were cast into shame. These masterless warriors, stripped of purpose and honor, became known as ronin, drifters, often reduced to mercenaries or criminals, wandering in search of survival.
Today, I see a striking parallel in Nigeria’s political class.
Our politicians are not driven by vision, service, or ideology. They are loyal only to godfathers, political “lords” who finance their campaigns, secure appointments, and shield them from accountability. These men and women do not rise on merit; they are installed, like pawns on a chessboard. And once their benefactors fall from grace, be it by electoral defeat, scandal, or death, they become what I call the ronin in agbadas: lost, desperate, and dangerously shameless.
They have no moral compass. No loyalty to the people. No legacy to protect.
Like the ronin, these politicians wander the land, party-hopping from PDP to APC to LP and back again, pledging allegiance to whoever offers them the next meal ticket. One day they’re “progressives,” the next they’re “reformers,” but never do they stand for anything concrete. There’s no conviction, just convenience.
But unlike the Japanese ronin, who bore the shame of failure and sometimes sought redemption through honorable death, our political ronin wallow in their disgrace. They don’t retreat; they reinvent themselves with shameless audacity. You’ll find them singing praises to the same people they once publicly condemned. They rewrite history to suit the new narrative. Some even turn against their former benefactors just to stay in the game.
This is the tragedy of Nigerian politics.
We are ruled by men who do not believe in anything but power. Their loyalty is not to Nigeria, not to their constituents, but to their political sugar daddies. Remove the godfather, and they collapse like puppets with cut strings. It’s why our politics lacks continuity, coherence, or credibility. It’s why development is stalled. It’s why betrayal is normalized.
The system has no room for statesmen, only survivors, and in this survival game, betrayal is currency.
Until we destroy the culture of godfatherism and demand that political actors stand on principle, not patronage, we will continue to be led by a wandering class of opportunists, ronin in agbadas, unmoored, unscrupulous, and uninspiring.
It’s time to bring honor back to public service. Enough of the political ronin. Let us raise a new generation of leaders who owe their allegiance to the people, not to the thrones of expired warlords.
By Hon. Duruebube ‘Oblong’ Chimazuru Nnadi-Oforgu
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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