Ronald Reagan, former President of the US, once said that “African leaders spend like drunken sailors; only that drunken sailors spend their own money while African leaders spend public money”. This opinion decries endemic corruption and the resultant underdevelopment in Africa; it reflects strongly on Nigeria, which is prodigiously endowed with human and natural resources yet flags the ignominious moniker of “poverty capital of Planet Earth”. Following the 2023 presidential election, an author referred to Nigerian leaders as “the scoundrels that are systematically sinking the ship of the Nigerian State”.
In same vein, Majeed Dahiru held, on Kakaki TV, that Nigeria’s “political leaders act like drunken sailors aboard a sinking ship”. The thematic string that ties the above averments are the metaphors of “Drunken captains” and a “sinking ship”, hence they informed the title and essence of this piece. Currently, Nigeria strains from the senseless squandering of the nation’s resources by bleeders who masquerade as leaders while a mammoth majority of citizens wallows in abject poverty.
The heartless display of affluence by authority figures belies the economic strangulation of the masses. Besides the brazen abuse of public office, political office holders in Nigeria recklessly display such personal wealth that cannot, by any stretch of the most liberal imagination, be justified within the limits of their legitimate income. From building.
