By Moshood Oshunfurewa, write from Lagos
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It is no longer a novelty to speak of Nigeria’s resilience in the face of institutionalised plunder. In the annals of nations, few have witnessed the staggering haemorrhage of national wealth as Nigeria has, from the annus mirabilis of 1960 to the present day. From the $12.4 billion Gulf War oil windfall that vanished under the watch of the General Ibrahim Babangida junta to the $654 billion that Babangida, his family and cronies are reported to have embezzled between 1983 and 1998, the history of this republic is a long, unbroken ledger of grand larceny against the people. Yet, after all these decades of financial haemorrhaging, Nigeria still stands, indeed a great nation in spirit if not in prosperity. The Nigerian people, the masses who live perpetually without power, endure decrepit roads, and send their children to crumbling schools, have developed a strangely heroic, almost suicidal resilience that is unmatched anywhere else in the world.
That resilience was tested once more last week when the Senate, through its Committee on Public Accounts, ordered the arrest of the former Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, over an alleged ₦210 trillion discrepancy in the company’s audited accounts spanning 2017 to 2023. The office of the Auditor-General of the Federation had flagged unresolved financial entries and discrepancies valued at over ₦210 trillion, sending shockwaves not just through the National Assembly but through the conscience of every thoughtful Nigerian. At the current exchange rate of approximately ₦1,360 to the United States dollar, ₦210 trillion is equivalent to about $154.4 billion. This amount is larger than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of several African nations combined, including Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
For those who may not fully grasp the sheer size of this amount, let us consider what it represents in terms of human development. If shared among Nigeria’s 240 million citizens, it would give every Nigerian roughly ₦875,000. If used to build modern secondary schools equipped with multiple classroom blocks, science and computer laboratories, libraries, sports facilities, and solar-powered electricity, with each school costing an estimated ₦2 billion, the country could build over 105,000 schools. Even at a cost of ₦5 billion per school, that would still translate to 42,000 institutions, meaning each of the nation’s 774 local government areas could receive over 54 modern secondary schools. The possibilities for healthcare, agriculture, and security are equally staggering. Yet, this is the same Mele Kyari and the institution he led that have argued, in defence of the status quo, that the Nigerian government cannot afford the N500,000 minimum wage advocated by Omoyele Sowore, nor can it absorb the millions of unemployed graduates into the workforce. The lie is revealed in the arithmetic.
What followed the Senate’s dramatic order was, however, a moment that encapsulated the tragicomedy of Nigerian governance. Within 24 hours, the Senate, through a motion raised by its leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, withdrew the arrest threat, nullified the warrant issued by its own committee, and formally distanced itself from the remarks of Senator Adams Oshiomhole who had described the NNPCL officials as “a bunch of criminals and thieves.” The Senate President ruled that the power to authorise such an arrest rests solely with his office, not with any committee. In the span of two days, the nation witnessed the spectacle of its highest legislative body threatening to bring a man in, dead or alive, only to turn around and reprimand itself for procedural overreach. The figure of ₦210 trillion was never convincingly explained away; it was simply ruled out of order. If this is not the epitome of the corruption of oversight and the blurring of national vision, then nothing is. As Owei Lakemfa, in his masterful analysis of our condition, wrote: “It is difficult to be a patriot when you don’t know where the truth lies.”
It is in this context that the recent comments by the leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, must be situated. Badenoch, who grew up in Nigeria, said: “Nigeria is an oil-producing country, never had electricity.” She added: “It is very easy to have resources under the ground, but stupid public policy means that you can’t use it.” Her words, however bitter, are a statistical reality. Nigeria, a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for over half a century, remains a nation where the national grid collapses with the regularity of a broken clock. While the NNPCL books are being probed for trillions of naira in discrepancies, the citizens power their homes with generators, spending their meagre incomes on petrol refined elsewhere. This is the condition that Kemi Badenoch summarised in one devastating sentence.
Yet, we must resist the temptation to dismiss her critique as the rantings of a diaspora politician. Her diagnosis points directly to the failure of the social contract. Governance in this country has been punctuated by a systemic disconnect between the ruling class and the populace, resulting in a persistent legitimacy crisis and political apathy. When a country possesses the natural resources to light up its homes, build its factories, and feed its population, but remains in darkness because of “stupid public policy,” it is clear that the social contract between the governors and the governed has been shredded. For a nation that claims to want to lead the world in innovation and invention, it is impossible to achieve such a goal when the basic condition of a stable electricity supply is a luxury reserved for a few.
The good news, however, is that Nigeria can fix itself. The sheer scale of the resources that are allegedly mismanaged, such as the ₦210 trillion in dispute, demonstrates that the nation is not poor; it is merely poorly governed. If these resources were democratically managed and controlled for the growth and needs of the ordinary Nigerian, the country could not only solve its security and infrastructure deficits but could also become the preeminent engine of innovation on the African continent. The National Values Charter, a proposed social contract by the current administration, aims to articulate the responsibilities of the government and the citizens in nation-building. However, no social contract is worth the paper it is written on if the state refuses to hold its most powerful citizens accountable.
From the 1960s to the present, Nigeria has moved in cycles of crisis and survival. The nation remains great because its people, despite the odds, refuse to let it die. But greatness born of suffering is not the goal of a nation-state. True greatness is the ability to ensure that from birth to death, no single soul in the country lives in the mystery of poverty, darkness, or ignorance. To achieve that, the nation must move beyond the threat of arresting Mele Kyari dead or alive and move towards a system where the question of the missing ₦210 trillion, or any scandal for that matter, is answered not through parliamentary theatre, but through the inexorable logic of the law and the integrity of democratic institutions. The nation stands, but the question is: for how long can it stand on such a broken foundation?
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