The type of stomach infrastructure (bribe for vote patronage) being promoted by Nigerian politicians is a minus for the people and a disservice to future generations. This is because the opportunity cost is more poverty and the lack of comparable national competitiveness, as well as perennial dependency on foreign countries for food at the expense of local capability and the naira, which weakens with increased imports.
Unfortunately, what is happening in Nigeria is not stomach infrastructure. It is poverty infrastructure, laying an indigent foundation that can only guarantee that the people will remain poor, beggarly and in squalor.
There is an uncomfortable reality many people sense but rarely say out loud. Widespread poverty is not always treated as an emergency by those who govern. In many systems, it quietly becomes an advantage. Not because hardship is good, but because hardship makes populations easier to manage.
When people are financially strained, they are easier to influence, easier to rally, easier to pacify, and easier to silence. Outrage needs energy. Resistance needs time. Organization needs resources. But survival consumes all three. Anger can protest, but hunger negotiates. And promises of a better tomorrow are far cheaper for leaders to distribute than real structural change.
This is why the politics of poverty often runs on reassurance instead of reform.
Economic struggle breeds dependence, and dependence weakens resistance. Someone who is constantly worried about food, rent, school fees, and medical bills rarely has the bandwidth to challenge entrenched power. Daily survival pushes long term liberty into the background. When bread becomes the primary concern, accountability becomes secondary. Citizens become preoccupied with coping rather than questioning.
Dependence does not just weaken the body. It softens opposition.
Hope then becomes a governing tool. Grand speeches, future projections, and repeated assurances are supplied in steady doses. People are told that improvement is around the corner, that patience will be rewarded, that transformation is loading. Optimism is extended like credit, while delivery is postponed like debt. Expectation keeps frustration from boiling over, even when measurable change is missing.
Hope without measurable action becomes a restraint, not a remedy.
Financial pressure also erodes critical thinking. Stress narrows attention. Fatigue reduces curiosity. When the mind is overloaded with unpaid bills and unmet needs, it struggles to examine policy, follow data, or decode political strategy. Economic anxiety creates mental fog, and mental fog favors those already in control. A population under strain reacts more than it analyzes.
Pressure weakens awareness long before it breaks the will.
Desperation also reshapes leadership choices. When people are cornered by hardship, standards drop. Long term competence loses ground to short term relief. Voters stop asking who can build strong systems and start asking who can provide immediate assistance. The promise of quick rescue outweighs the plan for durable prosperity. Urgency replaces judgment.
Need lowers the bar faster than propaganda ever could.
From there, small gestures buy oversized loyalty. In deprived environments, modest favors generate intense political attachment. Limited aid, minor contracts, or selective access can secure vocal defenders. Gratitude becomes politicized. Beneficiaries feel obligated to protect the benefactor, even when broader performance is weak. Truth becomes risky when survival feels sponsored.
Where livelihoods depend on patronage, honesty becomes costly.
Scarcity also turns the struggling against each other. Instead of confronting structural causes, communities are encouraged, directly or indirectly, to blame neighboring groups. Identity conflicts replace policy debates. Ethnic, religious, regional, and social divisions consume public attention. While citizens quarrel horizontally, power remains secure vertically.
Division is the cheapest security system for weak governance.
Fear then completes the circle. When people worry about losing access, opportunities, or protection, they speak more cautiously. Self censorship spreads. Many see problems clearly but say little publicly. Economic vulnerability produces political silence. By contrast, financial stability produces bold speech. Independence in income often translates into independence in voice.
Security in the wallet strengthens courage in the mouth.
In such settings, basic rights are gradually reframed as special favors. Services that should be standard are presented as gifts. Citizens are conditioned to show gratitude for entitlements. Applause replaces expectation. Over time, dignity is discounted and dependency normalized.
Scarcity can make even justice look like charity.
It is therefore naive to assume that persistent poverty is always accidental. Some systems are calibrated to keep large numbers of people barely afloat. Not collapsing, not advancing, just coping. Enough relief to prevent revolt, not enough reform to produce independence. Managed hardship can create predictable politics.
Control is cheaper when citizens are stretched thin.
You do not always need repression to dominate a population. You can achieve similar results with widespread insecurity. People with full capacity tend to question authority. People in constant need tend to comply with it. Economic strength fuels scrutiny. Economic weakness fuels submission.
The deeper lesson is not cynicism but clarity. Financial independence is more than personal comfort. It is civic power. It produces citizens who can evaluate leaders without fear and reject manipulation without panic. It creates thinkers instead of followers and participants instead of dependents.
The path forward is therefore practical and personal as well as political. Build economic capacity. Reduce dependency where possible. Support systems that expand opportunity, not patronage. Strengthen your ability to think, choose, and speak freely.
A society becomes harder to control the moment its people become harder to corner.
By Hon. Chimazuru Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Ndukaku III of Ihiagwa ófó asato
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
Leave a comment