There is a basic principle in every organized society: whenever authority grants an individual the right to perform certain acts within a defined scope, that right operates as a form of license. A driver’s license gives you the privilege to use public roads. A firearm license grants you the right to bear arms under specific conditions. These licenses can be revoked the moment the bearer violates their terms.
This simple truth provides a powerful analogy for understanding the current Nigerian political system.
Today, whether knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, Nigerians have issued politicians a license to steal. And until that license is revoked, Nigeria will remain trapped in an endless cycle of corruption, maladministration and national decay.
How Nigerians Issue the License
Under the 1999 Constitution, political parties were expected to serve as democratic institutions rooted in communities, from the ward level through the local governments, states, and national structures. In theory, party members participate actively in decision-making and candidate selection. In reality, Nigeria’s political parties have mutated into elaborate pay-to-play machines.
Delegates purchase their positions at ward congresses. After securing this status, they sell their votes during primaries—at the local government level, at the state level, and eventually at the national conventions for presidential tickets. It is a transactional ladder of corruption.
A candidate who buys delegates, buys the nomination, and buys the election is, by implication, purchasing the political office itself. And when a politician buys an office, he owes nothing to the electorate. He owes everything to the cost of securing power.
From that moment, public office becomes an investment and one that must yield returns.
This is the license Nigerians routinely issue:
“Go into office and recoup your investment. We already collected our share upfront.”
The Vicious Logic of Vote Selling
A citizen who sells his vote cannot credibly complain that the governor is not building roads, that the senator is not delivering projects, or that the president is not providing security. The transaction has already taken place. The politician now exercises the authority of office as someone who paid for the privilege.
Once elected, he enjoys a perceived legitimacy—because the very people who should hold him accountable participated in the corruption that put him there. Thus, the political elites are not acting outside the system; they are acting according to the system Nigerians themselves have helped create.
This Is Not an Excuse for Corruption — It Is a Charge against Society
This analysis is not an endorsement, justification, or minimization of political corruption. Rather, it highlights an uncomfortable truth: the Nigerian people, through cultural norms, electoral habits, and widespread moral compromise, are complicit in sustaining the very corruption they condemn.
No nation can consistently elect leaders who are morally superior to the society from which they emerge.
A corrupt and unethical population cannot produce transparent and incorruptible leaders.
If you take a statistical sample from a rotten fruit basket, you get a rotten fruit.
If you take a sample from a basket of good fruits, you get something good.
Leadership reflects society. Not the other way around.
The Core Problem: Culture
I have argued repeatedly that the fundamental problem of Nigeria is not ethnicity, not religion, not even the constitution. The problem is culture—a culture that normalizes dishonesty, celebrates ill-gotten wealth, rewards impunity, and mocks integrity as foolishness.
A society that applauds corruption cannot expect righteousness from the people it sends into political office. Therefore, any genuine national rebirth must begin from the bottom up.
Nigeria needs an ethical and cultural transformation, not merely political reforms.
Once the culture changes, the politics will follow.
Revoking the License to Steal
The license that politicians currently enjoy can and must be revoked. Not by legislation alone, not by courts, and not by anti-corruption agencies—but by the people themselves.
A morally awakened society will not sell its votes.
It will not tolerate corrupt delegates.
It will not celebrate thieves in agbada.
It will not normalize “national cake” mentality.
An ethical society will elect ethical leaders because the pool from which leaders emerge will itself be transformed.
Only then will Nigeria revoke the political class’s unofficial license to steal.
Only then will accountability replace impunity.
Only then will governance become service rather than self-enrichment.
The Challenge before Us
If we truly desire a Nigeria where electricity is stable, roads are motorable, institutions are functional, and corruption is a distant memory, then the transformation must begin with us, individually and collectively.
Change is not a mystery.
Change is not magic.
Change is a decision.
As we enter 2026, every Nigerian must confront the person in the mirror and ask:
Am I part of the problem, or part of the solution?
Nation-building is not the responsibility of leaders alone.
It begins in homes, streets, markets, places of worship, and personal choices.
Nigeria can become great, but only if Nigerians become better.
Brick by brick, value by value, choice by choice, we can build a new nation.
May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.