By Hon. Kenneth Chibuogwu Gbandi
Continued silence in the face of injustice by many Nigerians has itself become a form of fear and collective betrayal. Nigeria today stands on a dangerous edge, not because of opposition voices, but because of a governing culture that increasingly weaponizes state power while preaching reform.
Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigerians were promised renewed hope. What many now experience instead is renewed fear: fear that the instruments of the state are no longer neutral; fear that dissent attracts punishment; and fear that justice is applied not by law, but by loyalty; fear that you will be taxed to your last kobo at the expense of political elites’ ostentatious lifestyle. This is not democracy. This is coercion dressed in constitutional language. The greatest fear of all is that many Nigerians are beginning to fall in line simply because they are afraid that “Nigeria will happen” to them. And who can truly blame them?
The use of the police, the EFCC, and other security agencies against political opponents has become too patterned to ignore. Opposition figures are summoned, detained, investigated, or publicly embarrassed with alarming efficiency, while politically aligned individuals accused of similar or even more grievous offences often remain untouched. The government insists that institutions are acting independently. Nigerians are not fools. Independence that manifests only against critics is not independence; it is a dangerous strategy.
In my long years as a Nigerian Diaspora leader, I state clearly and without apology that fighting corruption must never become a fight against opposition or an instrument of the state to suppress vocal voices against bad governance and corruption itself. When anti-graft agencies are perceived as tools for political intimidation, corruption does not disappear, it merely changes uniform. The EFCC was not created to settle political scores or clear the field ahead of future elections. It was designed to protect the Nigerian people. Any deviation from that mission is an assault on democracy itself.
The continued handling of the Nnamdi Kanu case remains perhaps the most painful illustration of this selective approach to justice. Whether one agrees with Kanu’s rhetoric or methods is beside the point. The central issue is this: Nigeria cannot credibly claim to be one nation under law while justice appears harsher, slower, and more uncompromising for certain regions and identities. When political dialogue is rejected in favour of prolonged detention, legal controversy, and symbolic defiance, the state sends a clear message that power not reconciliation is the priority. That message deepens alienation and threatens national unity.
We must also recall the public outrage surrounding allegations of certificate forgery involving the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology, Chief Uche Geoffrey Nnaji, and the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo. The demand for transparency was loud and justified. Nigerians insisted, rightly, that the standard of integrity in public office must be uniform and uncompromising, irrespective of political clout or proximity to power. Justice cannot be selective if it is to be credible. One was forced to resign and rightly so, the other got political protection and wrongly too. One Nation two sets of rules.
The situation becomes even more alarming when we observe how former officials are treated once they fall out of political alignment. Investigations involving figures such as Abubakar Malami and Chris Ngige raise legitimate concerns, not because former office holders should enjoy immunity, they should not, but because accountability appears inconsistent. Nigerians ask, loudly and repeatedly: where is the consistency? Where is the equal application of the law? Why are some arrests dramatic and humiliating, while others are quiet or never occur at all?
This is a national crisis. Justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done fairly. A government that allows law enforcement to appear vindictive loses moral authority, even when legal arguments can be made in its defense. Power exercised without restraint breeds resentment, not respect.
I have consistently warned that governments often underestimate the consequences of accumulated injustice. People may endure economic hardship, but they do not endure humiliation indefinitely. They may tolerate policy failure, but they do not tolerate persecution disguised as governance. When citizens believe that the law no longer protects them equally, they begin to withdraw consent and no nation survives long without the consent of its people. The handwriting is already appearing on the wall across the country, slowly but steadily.
President Tinubu still has a choice before the end of his first term. He can either be remembered as a reformer who attempted to strengthen institutions beyond politics, or as another leader who perfected Nigeria’s old habit of selective governance. History is rarely kind to leaders who confuse authority with desperate political survival.
Nigeria does not need strong men any longer as is evident across countries in West Africa. It needs strong institutions. It does not need silence enforced by fear; it needs justice enforced by fairness. And it does not need double standards now, or ever.
Opposition voices must not be intimidated into quietness. As patriots, we cannot surrender the soul of this nation to convenience and coercion. Apathy must not be allowed to take hold. The drumbeat of “join the one-party dance or be prosecuted” must not deter us. Nigeria belongs to all of us, and its future must never be policed into submission.
I take solace in Victor Hugo’s timeless words: no army can stop an idea whose time has come. The time for Nigerians across religion, ethnicity, and generation to speak out is now. We must not wait for Nigeria to happen to all of us.
Hon. Gbandi is a former chair of the Hamburg Senate’s Foreigners’ Advisory Council on Anti-Discrimination, the longest-serving European Continental Chairman and Board of Trustees member of NIDOE Europe, the largest African diaspora professional network established by an Act of Nigeria’s National Assembly, a former Senatorial Candidate for Delta North (2023), and a long-standing advocate for good governance and diaspora integration in advancing democracy in Nigeria
