The Godfathers who own Nigeria, by Stephanie Shaakaa 

Since 1999, Nigeria has called itself a democracy. Every four years, Africa’s most populous nation lines up to vote, and the rituals of elections are performed with fanfare. But beneath the ceremonies lies another truth. Nigeria wears the clothes of democracy but lives under the rule of godfathers.

Ballots are cast, results are announced, but power is not decided in polling stations. It is negotiated in living rooms, brokered at midnight, and auctioned to the highest patron. Nigeria is not a democracy, it is a marketplace, and the currency is loyalty to godfathers.

We pretend to elect leaders, but what we really do is ratify the decisions of men who pull strings in the shadows. In Nigeria, ballots don’t choose, godfathers do.

This is the Godfather Economy. Politics here is not about ideas, competence, or vision. It is about who owes who, who kneels to who, and who dares not bite the hand that feeds.

Every governor has a godfather. Every senator bows to one. Even presidents are not exempt. They are sponsored, installed, and reminded at every turn who paved their way to power. In exchange, contracts flow, appointments are sold, and state budgets become repayment plans for political debts.

This economy doesn’t produce roads. It doesn’t build schools. It doesn’t create jobs. What it produces are stooge leaders who cannot think beyond their master’s script. It manufactures politicians who rise not by competence but by servitude. It traps Nigerians in a cycle of recycled mediocrity, because the system rewards obedience, loyalty not excellence.

The godfather is not just one man. He is a culture. He is every kingmaker who installs a puppet. He is every elder who says, Wait for your turn. He is every cabal that decides who should eat and who must starve. The godfather is the shadow government that survives every election, every coup, every transition. Leaders come and go, but the godfathers remain, fattened by power and untouchable by law.

And ordinary Nigerians? We are the collateral. We live in a country where ambition is suffocated unless you belong. Where merit is useless without a sponsor. Where the best brains are silenced while puppets rise. It is not that Nigeria lacks leaders. It is that Nigeria is chained to godfathers who will never let real leadership breathe.

This is why corruption thrives. Why poverty persists. Why insecurity festers. Decisions are not made for the people, they are made to please the godfather. Roads are abandoned because the contractor belongs to the wrong camp. Hospitals decay because healthcare doesn’t enrich the patron. Universities close while billions are stashed away all to keep political debts paid.

And perhaps the cruellest irony is this, Nigerians know their godfathers. We whisper their names. We see them at weddings and funerals, spraying money that should have built schools. We watch them sponsor politicians and dictate policies. Yet we clap. We hail. We normalize our chains.

Because in Nigeria, leaders don’t lead, they kneel. Our elections are not contests of ideas but auctions, and the highest bidder is always the godfather. Democracy began to wither the day loyalty to patrons outweighed loyalty to the people.

In 2023, Nigeria ranked 150th of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Index.

We tell ourselves we are changing governments, but what we are really doing is swapping one puppet for another. The true rulers of Nigeria are never on the ballot; they live in the shadows, pulling strings, deciding who will wear the crown and who will be cast aside. When the godfather holds both the yam and the knife, the people are left with nothing but the peel.

This is why our leaders govern like tenants, not rulers. They pay rent in contracts, appointments, and budgets, while citizens are left with abandoned roads, broken schools, and hospitals that never heal. The ballot may select the dancer, but the drumbeat always belongs to the godfather. And a puppet can never dance differently from the hand that moves it.

In such a system, merit cannot breathe. You cannot harvest justice from a farm planted by godfathers. As long as the lion feeds the cub, the cub will never learn to hunt. And as long as politics is owned by patrons, Nigeria will keep circling the same wilderness, elections staged as theatre, citizens reduced to a clapping audience.

The dream of many politicians is not to serve the people, but to serve the godfather who owns the people. That is why the ballot is a lie, while the contract is the truth. And Nigeria will not rise by swearing in yet another puppet. It will rise the day it buries its godfathers, the day the chain of patronage breaks, the day the marketplace of power finally closes.

Only then can leadership belong to the people. Only then will democracy breathe. Nigeria’s godfathers are a warning to every democracy, when power is traded like a commodity, the people always lose

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