I have come to realize that corruption in Nigeria is not just a behavior, it has become a government in itself. It is not merely a moral failure but a structural system that dictates who gets what, who goes to jail, and who gets celebrated. In this country, corruption does not live in the shadows, it lives in the open, sitting confidently in government offices, wearing suits of legitimacy, and smiling through policies that were designed not to serve but to steal. What we call governance in Nigeria today is often the refined art of looting public wealth under the protection of official titles. I no longer see corruption as an act of theft, I see it as a philosophy that defines the Nigerian state.
A child in Zamfara, Sokoto, or Kebbi still sits under a mango tree to learn. His teacher has not been paid in seven months, but somewhere in Abuja, a committee has approved billions for a project that will never exist beyond paper. In the hospitals of rural Katsina and Kaduna, I have seen pregnant women deliver on bare floors because mattresses were “procured” on paper. I have watched health workers share a single pair of gloves because budgets for medical supplies vanished into the private accounts of officials. Nigeria tragedy is not the lack of money, it is the disappearance of conscience. Transparency International ranks Nigeria among the world’s most corrupt nations, standing at 145th out of 180 countries in 2023, while BudgIT reveals that over ₦21 trillion has been lost to corruption since 1999 more than what was budgeted for both education and health combined. This means that the money meant to build our children’s future has built the mansions of our thieves.
Contracts are now awarded before policies are made. Roads are flagged off before designs are drawn. Ministries release funds before feasibility studies even begin. The idea of governance has been replaced by a culture of organized looting disguised as development. I have studied case after case of inflated contracts, fake procurements, and unexecuted constituency projects. The P&ID scandal alone cost Nigeria over $11 billion a debt that could have transformed our entire public education system. The infamous Diezani Alison-Madueke scandal remains one of the largest thefts in modern history, while countless “constituency projects” across the country exist only in documents. In The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis describes this perfectly when he wrote, “The personal state… a state in which the over official forms of government are not where the real power lies.” This is Nigeria’s shadow government one that operates beneath the constitution, beyond accountability, and above morality.
Every institution that should check corruption has now surrendered to it. The judiciary has become the final burial ground for truth. The legislature, which should hold the executive accountable, has become a business center where oversight is traded for contracts. The civil service, once the engine of public policy, now serves as the engine of political theft. As Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson wrote in Why Nations Fail, “Without inclusive institutions, and with a narrow elite controlling all resources, neither the right incentives will be created nor will there be an efficient allocation of the talents of people.” Nigeria perfectly fits this description a state where the few eat the future of the many. Merit no longer matters. Nepotism, tribalism, and political loyalty now determine everything from admission to promotion.
I have seen Vice Chancellors travel to Abuja begging for funding while corrupt contractors collect billions for projects that were never completed. I have seen professors struggling to survive on meager salaries while political aides buy new SUVs every 6 months. Our universities are in ruins, our hospitals are empty, our roads are broken, and our power supply is a national embarrassment. Yet every budget year, trillions are allocated and quietly looted. This is why I say that corruption has replaced governance because every policy is now a potential opportunity for theft.
In today’s Nigeria, corruption is no longer a crime, it has become a survival strategy. Politicians steal not because they are poor but because the system rewards dishonesty and punishes integrity. The honest civil servant is mocked as naive. The upright politician is seen as weak. A country where thieves become role models and truth-tellers are persecuted is not merely corrupt it is morally bankrupt. Over 133 million Nigerians are living in multidimensional poverty, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, while more than 20 million children are out of school. These numbers are not mere statistics; they are evidence of a broken system where leadership feeds on the suffering of the people.
When governance is replaced by greed, the nation silently decays from within. We now live in a society where the same politicians who caused our problems return every election cycle to offer fake solutions. They borrow to contest elections and loot to recover. The same roads are commissioned over and over again under different names. The same contracts are re awarded to the same companies. Even the same scandals are recycled with new faces. We have normalized fraud so deeply that honest leadership now looks like rebellion.
This generation must decide whether it will be remembered as the people who watched a nation die in silence or those who dared to rescue it with truth. I write not as a pessimist but as a witness to reality. I have seen how the culture of impunity has eaten into every level of government. I have seen how young people, once full of hope, are now drowning in despair. But I still believe there is a chance for redemption if we can replace fear with truth and blind loyalty with courage. Our survival as a nation depends on how quickly we confront corruption, not with politics, but with principle.
Corruption has turned Nigeria into a paradox a rich country with poor people, a blessed land cursed by its leaders. We cannot continue like this. A country that rewards thieves and punishes truth tellers has already auctioned its future. If we do not act now, we will soon reach a point where even corruption will run out of things to steal. History will not forgive our silence, but it will remember our courage. I have chosen not to be silent because silence in the face of injustice is complicity.
I say this with clarity, what we are experiencing today is not governance it is organized betrayal. Those in power have converted leadership into a business of accumulation while pretending to serve. But nations are not built by pretense, they are built by principles. The late Chinua Achebe once wrote, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.” Decades later, that truth still stands. Our leaders have failed not because they lack knowledge but because they lack conscience.
I write not as a follower of any political camp, but as a believer in the possibility of a new Nigeria, a Nigeria where leadership will no longer be measured by wealth but by worth. I write as one who has seen both the promise and the pain of this country and refuses to give up on it. Corruption may have stolen our future, but it has not stolen our will to fight back. This generation must rise, not with violence, but with truth, integrity, and accountability. Only then can we rebuild what was stolen and restore what was lost.
Because in the end, it is not the thieves who will destroy Nigeria, it is the silence of those who know better.
Hon Abubakar MG
Investigative Journalist| Political Thinker| Reform Advocate