By Kenneth Gbandi
There are moments when numbers stop being statistics and become moral questions. The revelation circulating widely that ₦500 million was reportedly released to Bola Tinubu’s Senior Adviser on Media and Communications while only ₦36 million went to the Ministry of Health serving over 230 million Nigerians is one of those moments. Whether one sees it as symbolism or systemic reality, the outrage it has triggered is understandable. Media commentator Rufai Oseni said the news kept him awake at night. He is not alone. Across the country, many Nigerians are asking how a nation battling failing hospitals, rising medical costs, and worsening poverty could place image management above human survival.
Budgets reveal priorities, and priorities reveal values. When communication appears to outrank healthcare, citizens are forced to ask whether governance has shifted from service delivery to perception management. At a time when debt servicing already consumes a frightening share of government revenue and borrowing continues to rise, every naira spent on propaganda carries an opportunity cost measured not in numbers but in lives, in untreated illnesses, in clinics without medicines, and in families pushed deeper into despair.
Nigerians were told subsidy removals and painful reforms were necessary sacrifices for a better future. Yet the daily reality suggests that sacrifice is demanded mostly from ordinary citizens while political comforts remain untouched. Convoys grow longer, officials travel farther, and public relations machinery expands even as hospitals struggle to keep the lights on. The message many citizens hear is simple: managing perception matters more than fixing problems.
This is why the anger is different this time. It is not only about one budget line; it is about a pattern of misplaced priorities. The widening gap between the political elite and everyday Nigerians has become impossible to ignore. When families generate their own electricity, provide their own security, and pay for private healthcare because public systems are failing, any appearance of extravagant spending on media narratives feels like an insult added to injury.
The true cost of misplaced priorities is trust. Governments can survive criticism, but they cannot indefinitely survive the quiet exhaustion of a population that feels unheard. Nigerians are not asking for perfection; they are asking for proportionality that healthcare should matter more than propaganda, that governance should focus on outcomes rather than optics. When budgets begin to murder sleep, they risk awakening a deeper national reckoning.
The question now is not whether outrage is justified. The question is how much longer citizens can endure a system where perception seems to matter more than people. And perhaps the most urgent question of all remains: when will enough truly be enough?
Hon. Kenneth Gbandi is a veteran diaspora leader and ADC Diaspora figure, widely recognised for sustained advocacy for credible elections, electoral technology reform, and accountable governance in Nigeria
