Politics: Nigeria’s Biggest Employer and the Grand Factory of Rebranded Mediocrity.

Let us stop pretending.

Let us stop dressing up dysfunction in the language of democracy.

Let us stop lying to ourselves.

Politics in Nigeria is not governance. It is not leadership. It is not service.

Politics in Nigeria is the most lucrative career path for the most unlikely individuals, the fastest route from obscurity to obscene wealth, the grand factory where mediocrity is rebranded as power.

Ask yourself a brutally honest question and do not flinch.

If politics did not exist in its current warped form, where exactly would a large percentage of those parading themselves today as “His Excellency”, “Distinguished”, and “Honourable” be?

Let us not be sentimental.

Let us be factual.

Many would still be drivers opening doors for real men of substance. Some would be personal assistants running errands. Others would be fuel attendants, roadside hustlers, or navigating the murky underworld of 419, drug peddling, petty thuggery, pimping, and cultism. That is not an insult. That is a reflection of the social and economic trajectories that were abruptly interrupted not by merit, but by political access.

Then politics happened.

And suddenly, Nigeria witnessed a miracle that no economic theory can explain.

Men without pedigree acquired power. Men without training began to control complex systems. Men without vision found themselves allocating billions. Men without discipline became custodians of public morality.

This is not empowerment.

This is a hostile takeover of a nation by opportunism.

Over the last few decades, Nigeria has experienced what can only be described as a crude and chaotic redistribution of wealth. Not driven by innovation. Not powered by industry. Not anchored on productivity. But fueled almost entirely by access to state resources and the capture of political structures.

Politics has become Nigeria’s biggest employer, but not in the way nations should be proud of.

It employs loyalty over competence.

It rewards aggression over intellect.

It promotes proximity over performance.

It elevates survival instincts above strategic thinking.

And so what we now have is a country where the pathway to wealth is no longer to build, create, invent, or add value, but to position, align, attach, and extract.

The tragedy is not just that these individuals rose.

The tragedy is that the system did not transform them.

Because power without preparation is dangerous.

Wealth without discipline is destructive.

Authority without intellect is catastrophic.

So what you see across the landscape is not leadership, but access masquerading as leadership.

Not governance, but organized consumption.

Not vision, but reckless accumulation.

Nigeria did not eliminate the underclass.

It simply relocated it to the top.

And in doing so, it created a new elite that behaves exactly like the environment it came from, only now with state backing, security escorts, and institutional cover.

The so called old elite that lost ground were not necessarily saints, but they at least operated within some structure of training, exposure, and restraint. What replaced them in many cases is a more desperate, more aggressive, and less restrained class whose only understanding of power is acquisition and control.

This is not progress.

This is elite substitution without civilisation.

So yes, some people say Nigerians should be grateful to politics.

Grateful?

Grateful that a system exists where the fastest way to wealth is to capture the state?

Grateful that public office has become the most reliable business model in the country?

Grateful that competence has been dethroned and replaced with connections, coercion, and cunning?

Grateful that a nation of over 200 million people is being steered by individuals who, in a merit driven system, would struggle to pass through the front door of serious institutions?

Let us be clear.

Politics has lifted many individuals, but it has crippled the nation.

It has created billionaires without industries, leaders without vision, and institutions without authority.

It has normalised corruption, weaponised poverty, and turned governance into a feeding frenzy.

It has taught an entire generation that the goal is not to build Nigeria, but to “enter government”.

And once you enter, you eat.
Relentlessly.

Shamelessly.

Without consequence.

So the question is no longer whether politics has helped some Nigerians.

It clearly has.

The real question, the only question that matters, is this:

Has politics helped Nigeria?

Because if a system enriches individuals but impoverishes a nation, that system is not a blessing.

It is a curse wearing agbada.

And until Nigeria replaces this culture of extraction with a culture of creation, until leadership becomes a product of competence and not conspiracy, until power is earned and not hijacked, we will continue to recycle the same tragedy under different names, different faces, and different slogans.

What we are witnessing is not development.

It is the institutionalisation of dysfunction.

And history will not be kind to a generation that saw it clearly, understood it deeply, and still chose to normalize it.

By Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi

http://www.oblongmedia.net