From Dancing While Nigeria Drowns
Abuja is not a capital city. It’s a theater of beautifully coordinated deceit. A manicured mirage in the middle of an unraveling nation. The air is clean, the streets are wide, the buildings glisten like imported lies. But beneath the granite and glass lies Nigeria’s most lucrative export: fake promises—Made in Abuja, approved by mediocrity, and distributed nationwide for public consumption.
Every four years, Abuja transforms into a prophecy machine. Politicians, freshly laundered and digitally repackaged, gather to unleash the mother of all miracles: the Manifesto. A sacred text written in the finest calligraphy of deception. It promises everything—free healthcare, uninterrupted power, one million jobs, clean water, flying cars, and maybe even a functioning Nigeria.
But like all Abuja things, it’s premium fake. High grade. Tested. Trusted. Empty.
These documents are not meant to be implemented. They are designed to be quoted. In fact, there’s an unspoken rule: if a politician says he will do something in his manifesto, just know it’s the one thing he’s already canceled in his mind. It’s not a to-do list; it’s a to-deceive list.
You see, Abuja is a lie wrapped in infrastructure. It has working traffic lights, planted flowers, and street signs that lead nowhere. It gives the illusion of order so that visitors forget that just 20 kilometers out, children are learning under mango trees, and women are giving birth on the floor beside expired mosquito nets.
But within Abuja’s magic walls, nothing is real except the greed.
Here, senators earn wardrobe allowances big enough to fund a village clinic. Ministers fly privately while public schools can’t afford chalk. Special Advisers have Special Advisers. There are Committees on Committees. Every solution is a new committee. Every scandal is a new spokesperson. And every lie is dressed up in national colors and marched out with military band precision.
“Change,” they said.
“Next Level,” they shouted.
“Renewed Hope,” they sang.
Different packaging, same expired content.
One governor promised to turn his state into Dubai. Today, even his potholes are in recession. Another claimed he’d provide one meal a day for every school child. Instead, he feeds the media with photos of empty plates and happy children that don’t exist.
Abuja is where ideas go to die and press releases go to heaven.
Remember the promise of uninterrupted electricity by 2020? We now have uninterrupted darkness with monthly bills for light we never saw. Remember the “Youth Empowerment” schemes? They empowered a few cousins and renamed the rest. Remember the housing for all? It became housing for none—unless you’re related to someone who plays golf in Asokoro.
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Yet, every cycle, new promises arrive like refurbished laptops from Aliexpress—shiny in pictures, broken on arrival.
And the people? Oh, the people clap. Not because they believe, but because belief is the only drug left. Hope has become an anesthetic. We line up to receive our dose of delusion, then stagger back into the same poverty with a smile.
Because in Nigeria, disappointment is not a surprise. It is a ritual.
You wake up, see a new government project trending, squint your eyes, and say: “E go still spoil.” And 9 times out of 10—you’re right. Bridges collapse before ribbon-cutting. Trains break down before first passengers. Hospitals are commissioned without syringes. It’s not sabotage—it’s strategy. A budget that works too well might accidentally help the poor, and that would be unpatriotic.
So the fake promises must continue.
They are Abuja’s export product. Our politicians are the marketers. The masses are the market. The media is the megaphone. And every election season is Black Friday.
What we need, they say, is patience.
But we’ve been patient since 1960. How do you ask a man waiting for clean water for over 60 years to be more patient? How do you preach endurance to someone who hasn’t seen salary in 11 months but sees senators driving bulletproof sins?
Abuja is not short of solutions. It is allergic to sincerity. Every leader knows what to do—they just don’t want to do it. It is easier to promise another flyover than to fix a leaking roof. Easier to tweet plans than to build toilets. Easier to print T-shirts than to create jobs.
Because in Abuja, printing hope is more profitable than delivering it.
Professor MarkAnthony Ujunwa Nze is a distinguished Nigerian-born investigative journalist, public intellectual, and global governance analyst, whose work spans critical intersections of media, law, and policy. His expertise extends across strategic management, leadership, and international business law, where he brings a nuanced understanding of institutional dynamics, cross-border legal frameworks, and executive decision-making in complex global environments.
Currently based in New York, Professor Nze serves as a full tenured professor at the New York Centre for Advanced Research. There, he spearheads interdisciplinary research at the forefront of governance innovation, corporate strategy, and geopolitical risk. Widely respected for his intellectual rigor and principled advocacy, he remains a vital voice in shaping ethical leadership and sustainable governance across emerging and established democracies.