Odita Sunday 
There is something profoundly heartbreaking about a hungry citizen defending the politician who stole the money that should have helped put food on his table.
Something devastating about a mother praising a leader while the hospital that might save her child has no medicine.
Something tragic about young Nigerians fighting over politicians whose children are safely abroad, far from the insecurity, unemployment and despair confronting those at home.
How did we arrive here?
How did religion, ethnicity and party loyalty become so powerful that we recognise an insult to a politician more quickly than an injury to our own future?
Hunger does not ask whether you are Christian or Muslim. A kidnapper does not spare you because you share a governor’s ethnicity. Contaminated water does not become safe because your preferred party won an election.
Our suffering crosses the boundaries we keep defending.
When politicians embezzle public money, the loss does not end with a figure missing from an account. It reaches into people’s homes.
It becomes the empty pot a mother stares into, wondering what to tell her children. It becomes the dry tap, the dark classroom, the hospital without oxygen. It becomes a farmer afraid to enter his own fields and a family waiting through the night for someone who may never come home.
Money meant to protect lives disappears, leaving citizens in communities where safety is uncertain and help may never arrive.
And while ordinary Nigerians endure the consequences, those responsible can afford protection from them.
Our roads deteriorate; they board private jets. Our hospitals struggle; they seek treatment abroad. Our schools decay; their children attend expensive foreign institutions. Our neighbourhoods remain in darkness; their homes have generators and solar power. Families search for clean drinking water; their own households lack nothing.
Citizens travel in fear while powerful officials move with armed escorts.
The public pays for their comfort and then pays again for their failures.
Perhaps the cruellest part comes during elections.
After years of deprivation, some politicians return with bags of rice, vehicles and bundles of cash. They expect applause. They expect loyalty. They expect the people to forget what those same resources could have built.
Money that should have provided lasting opportunity returns as a temporary handout, bearing the name and photograph of a supposed benefactor.
The hungry are invited to celebrate the meal and forget why they cannot feed themselves.
We should never mock a parent desperate enough to accept food. Hunger is painful. A child cannot eat a promise of reform. But that desperation should trouble our conscience—and deepen our anger at those who exploit it.
A bag of rice will finish. The hospital will still have no medicine. The road will still be dangerous. The child will still need an education.
Yet some citizens threaten their neighbours, destroy friendships and shed blood to return these politicians to office.
Before you raise your hand against another Nigerian, remember: that person may be struggling to feed a family just as you are. Your children may attend the same neglected school. Your parents may depend on the same failing hospital.
Why should either of you die to preserve another person’s privilege?
Nigeria has the resources and human talent to offer its people a better life. But wealth buried beneath the earth cannot compensate for public money stolen above it. Prosperity requires institutions that work, leaders who answer for their conduct and citizens who refuse to excuse wrongdoing because the offender is “one of our own.”
Religion should awaken our conscience. Ethnicity should give us belonging. Neither should require us to defend the theft of our children’s future.
Before supporting any politician, ask what has changed in the lives of ordinary people.
Can families afford food? Is there clean water? Are the roads safer? Do hospitals save lives? Can farmers work without fear? Can young people find dignified employment? Where did the public money go?
Demand answers. Demand accountability. Let your loyalty begin with the people who must live with the consequences of your choice.
Your vote carries the hopes of your household: the child waiting for school fees, the mother needing treatment, the graduate searching for work, the family praying for a safe journey home.
Do not surrender those hopes for a moment’s generosity.
Your vote is your power. Do not sell it—and leave your children to pay the price.
Chris Okobah PhD
Award mining author
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