Elitism and the Erosion of Citizenship in Nigeria

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The central crisis of Nigeria today is not merely economic or institutional. It is a crisis of citizenship — the gradual erosion of the sense that every Nigerian is an equal stakeholder in the Nigerian project.

This erosion was recently brought into sharp relief by remarks from the First Lady, who advised citizens to “learn how to make akara and kuli-kuli to survive” amid prevailing adversities.

While entrepreneurship is vital, such counsel, offered without a corresponding articulation of systemic relief, risks being interpreted as a retreat of the state from its social contract. It frames survival, rather than prosperity and dignity, as the national aspiration.

Concurrently, official narratives continue to project an image of stability and progress — “all is well” — even as data and lived experience reflect deepening cost-of-living pressures, insecurity, and declining purchasing power. The dissonance between state messaging and citizen reality has widened the trust deficit between government and the governed.

Compounding this is the increasing concentration of economic power. The expanding dominance of Dangote Industries across critical sectors — energy, cement, and allied industries — places enormous control over the nation’s economic lifeblood in private hands.

Rather than subject this consolidation to robust public scrutiny and regulatory balance, segments of the Nigerian elite have aligned themselves with it, often acting as its foremost defenders.

The cumulative effect is a polity in which citizenship is reduced to endurance. Citizens are exhorted to self-manage their hardship while strategic economic and political decisions are made at tables from which they are largely excluded.

If Nigeria is to reclaim the idea of shared citizenship, three shifts are necessary: first, leadership must address hardship with empathy and policy, not platitudes; second, economic power must be governed in the public interest, with transparency and competition; and third, the elite must redefine their role from patronage to nation-building.

A nation cannot thrive when its people are permanent spectators in their own country.

*Ameh Anyebe Oduh Writes from Abuja and can be reached via email: alhajiahmed_nsc@yahoo.co.uk

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