Nigeria: A Nation Betrayed by Power Failure, Oppression and Injustice

By George Omagbemi Sylvester

There comes a time when silence becomes a crime, when the very fabric of a nation is ripped apart by incompetence, corruption and shameless oppression, speaking out becomes not just a right but a duty. Nigeria, Africa’s supposed “Giant,” now groans under the crushing weight of persistent power failures, political injustice and a dangerous culture of impunity, while the world shamefully looks the other way.

Recently, in a scene that captured the tragedy of Nigeria’s endless decline, celebrated filmmaker Kunle Afolayan suffered a power blackout while in conversation with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Lagos. That singular moment of lights out in Africa’s most populous nation during a global tech conversation symbolized all that is wrong with Nigeria today. It screamed volumes about decades of misrule, infrastructure decay and elite indifference.

As comedian Basketmouth once sarcastically joked, “In Nigeria, NEPA (Power Authority) is so consistent at failing that if they mistakenly leave the light for 24 hours, you start suspecting witchcraft.”

Unfortunately, this is no longer a joke. It is the grim reality of a country that generates barely 4,000 megawatts for over 200 million people, while Ghana, South Africa and Rwanda with a fraction of the population, struggles and still produces almost four times more.

Nigeria’s darkness is not only physical. It is moral. It is political. It is spiritual.

While citizens battle daily with no electricity, hunger, insecurity and despair, the so-called leaders indulge in unrestrained arrogance and scandalous misconduct.

A prime example is the recent injustice orchestrated by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) against popular activist VeryDarkMan. His “crime”? Daring to criticize Senate President Godswill Akpabio over his tone-deaf message from Rome during the burial of the late Pope Benedict XVI. While Nigerians wallowed in poverty back home, Akpabio had the audacity to declare from the Vatican that “poverty is not a crime but a virtue from God.”

Such statements would cause outrage in any sane society. But for my Nigeria, the APC instead issued VeryDarkMan a one-week ultimatum to apologise or face persecution. The very nerve! In a country where freedom of speech is enshrined in the constitution, activists are now criminalized for pointing out the emperor’s nakedness.

As comedian I Go Dye aptly puts it, “In Nigeria, the truth is an offence, but not a crime. However, telling the truth can earn you a life sentence of harassment.”

Another heartbreaking episode that underlines Nigeria’s descent into absurdity is the case of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. Earlier this year, Natasha accused Senate President Akpabio of sexual harassment. Yet, in a shocking twist, she was recently forced to “apologise” in public, mockingly saying, “I forgot I won my Senate seat through erection, not election.”

This vulgar “apology” highlights the depth of coercion and humiliation women face in Nigeria’s toxic political environment. Where is the outcry from so-called human rights defenders? Where are the international watchdogs who profess to care about democracy and justice? Silence.

Nigeria today is a country where the victims are punished, and the powerful are glorified. A place where elections are rigged with reckless abandon, only for the oppressed to be told to “go to court” in a judiciary system more compromised than a pickpocket in a crowded market.

As renowned journalist Chido Onumah once observed, “Nigeria has perfected the art of normalizing abnormality. We have become so used to injustice that justice now feels like an attack.”

And the facts do not lie:

According to Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perception Index, Nigeria ranked 150 out of 180 countries, one of the worst performances globally.

Over 133 million Nigerians more than 60% of the population live in multidimensional poverty, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the World Bank’s 2024 Doing Business report, Nigeria slipped to the bottom third in ease of doing business, largely due to epileptic power supply and official corruption.

Yet despite these damning realities, the international community remains largely silent. No sanctions. No public condemnations. No real pressure on the Nigerian government to reform.

As Fela Kuti, the legendary Afrobeat pioneer and activist, once thundered, “My people are suffering and nobody cares!”
Today, his words echo louder than ever before.

It is a shame that while the world rightly condemns injustice in other nations, Nigeria’s slow motion collapse is met with diplomatic platitudes and cynical indifference. African lives, it seems, remain cheap even to Africans themselves.

The tragedy of Nigeria is not that it has failed. It is that it continues to fail so spectacularly while those responsible are celebrated as “leaders” and “statesmen.”

In a functioning society, Kunle Afolayan’s blackout moment with Mark Zuckerberg would have sparked a national emergency. Heads would have rolled. A real government would have apologized to its citizens and moved swiftly to invest in energy and technology infrastructure. But in Nigeria, the leaders continue to jet around the world, spewing nonsense about “poverty being a virtue.”

Enough is enough…

Nigerians must understand that no messiah is coming. Salvation lies not in new elections rigged by the same old crooks but in a fundamental restructuring of the political system, anchored on accountability, competence and justice.

As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wisely put it, “There is danger in telling only one side of the story and for too long, the Nigerian leadership has controlled the narrative while silencing the people’s suffering.”

The time for polite complaints is over. The time for bold truth telling is now.

The youth, the activists, the comedians, the journalists, the true conscience of the nation must continue to shout, to organize, to resist. Not with violence, but with unrelenting exposure of the lies, the oppression and the corruption that are killing the country.

Nigeria must no longer be a nation where power outages, judicial corruption, political persecution and shameless injustice are “normal.”

As comedian Gordons famously said, “In Nigeria, God works overtime because even the angels are confused on who to help first.”
It’s time we stop exhausting even heaven with our irresponsibility.

The world must also pay attention. For every nation that ignores injustice in Nigeria today, remember: injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The power failure that interrupted Kunle Afolayan’s meeting with Mark Zuckerberg was not just a technical glitch. It was the universe exposing the naked truth: Nigeria is in darkness and only Nigerians can fight their way into the light.