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A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Jibrin Okutepa, has delivered a scathing critique of the nation’s political class ahead of the 2027 polls, accusing leaders of using ordinary citizens as bargaining chips in the struggle for power while abandoning them once their interests are settled.
In a lengthy X post on Wednesday, Okutepa said the tragedy of Nigerian politics is that the people whose welfare should be the government’s purpose have become tools for campaigns, opposition slogans and access to public office.
“Their poverty provides campaign material. Their suffering supplies opposition slogans. Their votes open the doors to public office. Yet, once political interests are settled, their needs are too often abandoned,” he said.
The socio-political commentator lamented that the betrayal is made worse by those who ought to defend the people, including political leaders, influential voices and supposed champions of justice, who now find convenient reasons to support the very practices they once condemned.
He said, “Conduct described as oppressive yesterday suddenly becomes acceptable today because an appointment, an alliance or access to power has changed hands. Principles disappear where personal benefits begin.”
The senior lawyer questioned why sacrifice is always demanded of ordinary Nigerians while those in power protect their own privileges.
“The struggling trader must adjust. The unemployed graduate must remain hopeful. The worker must exercise patience. But when will those entrusted with public power accept that leadership requires sacrifice from them too?” he asked.
Okutepa also criticised what he described as crooked political games, where fierce opponents exchange accusations before cameras only to reconcile when their interests converge.
He said reconciliation is welcome when it serves the public good, but becomes betrayal when promises of accountability are quietly buried and citizens are told to applaud arrangements that offer them no relief.
According to him, the system thrives on hardship, which weakens citizens’ bargaining power.
A hungry person, he said, becomes vulnerable to inducement, while communities desperate for basic amenities may be persuaded to exchange their political independence for gestures presented as generosity.
“What citizens should receive as a matter of public duty is then advertised as a personal favour,” he said, adding that politicians are now making empty promises to transform hell into heaven if elected.
“But where is heaven on earth in Nigeria, after all these years since 1999?” he queried.
Okutepa also took aim at those who excuse injustice because its beneficiaries share their party, religion, ethnicity or friendship, warning that every such defence strengthens a machinery that may oppress someone else tomorrow.
He stated, “Poverty does not become less painful because a familiar face inflicts it. Those who were vocal against injustice yesterday are now defenders of the very unjust systems they attacked. What has changed, if I may ask? Nigerians are in hell in their own country.”
He called for citizens, professional bodies, labour organisations, religious institutions and public commentators to maintain the same standards regardless of who holds power, and to resist trading public trust for private comfort.
Okutepa said, “The Nigerian masses deserve a government that makes their lives better and advocates who will stand by them when doing so becomes inconvenient. They deserve to be heard between elections, respected beyond campaign grounds and protected from arrangements that perpetuate their misery.
“The people are human beings with dignity, hopes and rights. No political ambition, alliance or private benefit can justify keeping them poor, powerless and perpetually betrayed.”
