Odita Sunday 
How Corruption, Weak Institutions and Failed Accountability Stole Nigeria’s Promise
There was a time when Nigeria looked toward the future with extraordinary confidence.
At independence in 1960, we inherited enormous promise: a large population, fertile land, important agricultural exports, emerging industries, educated professionals and immense natural resources. Nigeria quickly became one of Africa’s most influential countries.
Then came coups, political instability and the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970—a devastating conflict that consumed lives, resources and national energy. After the war came reconstruction and, eventually, the oil boom. Military governments undertook enormous federal infrastructure projects, expanded highways, airports, universities and public institutions, and presided over an era in which oil revenues transformed the physical landscape of the country. Nigeria’s Second Republic subsequently lasted from October 1979 until the military coup of December 1983. (Unvis)
But our history should not be romanticised.
Military governments also produced corruption, repression, waste and economic mistakes. Civilian governments have likewise recorded serious corruption and little achievements. The point is not that everything military was good and everything civilian has been bad.
The deeper question is far more troubling:
How can a country this wealthy, this populated, this talented and this strategically important remain so far below its potential?
That is Nigeria’s tragedy.
Democracy Returned, But Did Development Return With It?
When civilian government returned permanently in 1999, Nigerians hoped democracy would bring something more enduring than elections.
They expected accountable government.
They expected stronger institutions.
They expected roads, hospitals, schools, electricity, security and opportunity.
There has been unquestionably slow achievements.
The only transformative achievement is telecommunications liberalisation. In 2001, the Nigerian Communications Commission issued digital mobile licences to operators including MTN and Econet, helping end the old telecommunications monopoly and triggering the GSM revolution that fundamentally changed how Nigerians communicate and conduct business. (National Communications Commission)
Subsequent civilian administrations had a very limited infrastructure improvement . Under the Buhari administration, for example, The Warri–Itakpe railway which was conceived primarily to connect the iron-ore deposits at Itakpe and the Ajaokuta steel complex with the Warri area. Construction began in 1987 federal government completed the project 33 years after construction began also the same administration advanced the Lagos–Ibadan standard-gauge railway, was completed and formally commissioned for commercial operations by President Muhammadu Buhari, though Lagos–Ibadan had an older colonial narrow-gauge railway but it was expanded .
the Second NigerBridge, President Goodluck Jonathan performed the groundbreaking ceremony for the project.
and major highway projects. Whatever one’s broader assessment of that government, those projects are matters of record. (State House Abuja)
And that is precisely why our criticism must be accurate.
Nigeria’s problem is not that nothing has been built.
Nigeria’s problem is that, considering the staggering resources available to the country over decades, what has been achieved remains painfully disproportionate to what Nigeria could have become.
We should have gone much further.
When Muhammadu Buhari defeated an incumbent president in 2015, something important happened in Nigerian democracy.
For millions of Nigerians, the peaceful transfer of power created hope that electoral accountability was becoming real and that corruption, insecurity and institutional weakness would finally be confronted decisively.
Eight years later, many Nigerians were deeply disappointed.
Yet even here, history requires balance. The Buhari administration did undertake major infrastructure projects. The legitimate debate is therefore not whether it did anything, but whether its overall economic, security, governance and institutional record justified the enormous expectations placed upon it.
That distinction matters.
Because Nigeria will never repair itself by replacing propaganda from government with propaganda from its critics.
Truth must remain truth, irrespective of who is in power.
Then Came Tinubu
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu entered office in May 2023 carrying a political reputation built substantially around his tenure as governor of Lagos between 1999 and 2007.
But his Lagos record should be assessed on projects and reforms actually undertaken by his administration—not by attributing every major Lagos landmark to him.
For example, the Third Mainland Bridge was commissioned during the Shagari era and completed under the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, long before Tinubu became governor.
That does not mean Tinubu’s Lagos administration accomplished nothing. It means Nigerians should insist on historical accuracy.
Nobody should be elected because mythology has replaced evidence.
Nobody should be condemned because propaganda has replaced evidence either.
Performance must speak for itself.
The Reforms and the Human Cost
President Tinubu’s administration immediately removed the petrol subsidy and moved toward a market-reflective foreign-exchange regime.
These policies produced enormous short-term economic shocks. The World Bank reported that the reforms caused sharp increases in petrol prices and significant depreciation of the naira.
The government have argued that the reforms were necessary to address longstanding fiscal and economic distortions. And by April 2026, the World Bank reported meaningful progress in macroeconomic stabilisation, including easing inflationary pressures, but to the suffering Nigerian citizens, that statement is not true based on facts on ground, the government claims there were stronger fiscal and external positions and continued economic growth.
But the World Bank assessment contained sentence Nigerians cannot afford to ignore:
household incomes had not fully recovered and poverty remained high. (World Bank)
That is the heart of the problem.
Economic reform cannot ultimately be judged only by graphs, reserves, exchange-rate mechanisms and government revenue.
It must eventually enter the kitchen.
It must enter the marketplace.
It must enter the salary of the worker.
It must enter the farm.
It must enter the life of the pensioner.
It must enter the future of the child whose parents can no longer comfortably afford food, transportation, school fees or healthcare.
The World Bank stated earlier in the reform period that targeted cash transfers were intended to cushion vulnerable households.
The legitimate question, therefore, is did this cash transfers ever happen? did the mitigation measure ever existed?
Was the protection adequate, transparent, effectively targeted and large enough to match the magnitude of the hardship?
That is a question every democratic government should be prepared to answer.
What Happened to Accountability? as the program became a cesspool of corruption.
Another fundamental question concerns corruption.
If subsidy expenditure was unsustainable partly because fraud and abuse had corrupted the system, Nigerians deserve to know what became of those who allegedly exploited it.
Who was investigated?
Who was prosecuted?
What money was recovered?
What institutional loopholes were permanently closed?
Reform should not punish millions of ordinary citizens while leaving politically connected beneficiaries of previous abuses untouched.
Otherwise, sacrifice begins to look selective.
And selective sacrifice breeds resentment.
Roads, Power and Security
The Tinubu administration is pursuing large infrastructure projects, including the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway. The Federal Ministry of Works reported in August 2026 that construction had progressed beyond Epe and was continuing across sections of the route.
The debate, therefore, should not be based on the claim that government is constructing something, the debate should be, is it necessary at this time? Also the process of the award of the contract creates a lot of scrutiny as there seems to be a lot of unclear questions and shenanigans in the process of awards of the contract and the qualifications of the contractor..
The more important question is one of priorities.
How should Nigeria balance gigantic new projects against the rehabilitation of deteriorating federal highways already carrying millions of citizens and enormous volumes of commerce?
How much should be invested in maintaining existing infrastructure before embarking upon additional mega-projects?
These are legitimate questions about public expenditure.
Electricity remains another profound national tragedy . Even the Federal Ministry of Power acknowledged in July 2026 the continuing fragility of the national grid and the need for further investment in grid stabilisation. Business have been shut down, lives have plummeted economy brought down because of tragedy in the power sector.
Security remains equally grave.
ACLED reports continuing insurgency, banditry, terrorism, farmer–pastoralist violence and the spread of armed instability in several parts of Nigeria. Human Rights Watch similarly documented persistent killings, kidnappings and violent attacks during 2025. (ACLED)
For families living in affected communities, insecurity is not an academic statistic.
It determines whether a farmer enters his field.
Whether a child attends school.
Whether a trader travels to another town.
Whether a family sleeps through the night.
And sometimes, whether somebody who leaves home in the morning returns alive. And whether foreign investors are willing to visit and invest in the country or not.
Thirty-One states in
Nigeria has also experienced an extraordinary concentration of governors within the ruling party.
As of September 2026, 31 of the country’s 36 governors belong to the APC.
That is different from saying that 31 governors defected.
Many were originally elected under the APC, while others subsequently crossed from opposition parties.
These governors defected hoping on electoral manipulation by the party in power and that is the honest truth . This is based on the the monumental evidence of fraud in the last election by the ruling party.
These governors are therefore relying on membership of the ruling party to help them in election rigging come the next election.
Such overwhelming political concentration legitimately raises another democratic question:
What happens to democracy when political competition becomes progressively weaker?
A healthy democracy needs institutions strong enough that no governor, president, political party or wealthy individual can determine an election outside the lawful votes of citizens.
INEC should therefore not merely demand public confidence while performing as a branch of the ruling political party.
It must continually earn it through transparency, professionalism, consistency and demonstrably credible elections.
Nigeria’s Greatest Deficit Is Not Money
Nigeria is not poor in human beings.
We are not poor in land.
We are not poor in oil.
We are not poor in gas.
We are not poor in intelligence.
We are not poor in entrepreneurship.
We are not poor in courage.
Our deepest deficit has been institutional.
We have too often built personalities stronger than institutions.
We have allowed political loyalty to compete with national interest.
We have sometimes celebrated unexplained wealth while condemning poverty.
We complain about corruption while tolerating it when the beneficiary belongs to our ethnic group, political camp, church, mosque, village or family.
That contradiction must end.
Government alone cannot repair Nigeria.
Opposition parties alone cannot repair Nigeria.
Religious leaders cannot repair Nigeria.
Foreign governments cannot repair Nigeria.
And God will not perform the civic responsibilities that belong to human beings.
The reconstruction of Nigeria requires citizens, institutions and leaders committed to the same simple principle:
public office is a trust, not an inheritance; government money belongs to the people; elections belong to voters; and leadership must ultimately be measured by what happens to ordinary human lives.
Nigeria does not need another messiah.
Nigeria needs institutions that make messiahs unnecessary.
We need elections whose results command confidence.
Courts whose judgments cannot be bought.
Police who enforce the law without asking who made the telephone call.
Anti-corruption agencies that investigate friends and opponents with the same determination.
Public accounts that citizens can scrutinise.
Governors who understand that states are not private estates.
Presidents who understand that criticism is not treason.
Citizens who understand that democracy does not end after election day.
The tragedy of Nigeria is not that we do not know what is wrong.
We know.
The tragedy is that for decades we have repeatedly learned to live with what we know is wrong.
That is what must change.
Because nations rarely collapse in one dramatic moment.
They decline when dysfunction becomes normal.
When corruption becomes culture.
When incompetence becomes acceptable.
When citizens stop demanding explanations.
When truth becomes partisan.
And when everyone waits for somebody else to rescue the country.
Nigeria has waited long enough.
We do not need another slogan.
The Nigeria needs institutions, accountability, courage—and a national determination to make government work for the governed.
Chris Okobah PhD
Award winning author
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