It is a painful reality that we must accept: Nigeria is a very poor country, holding one of the world’s largest concentrations of poverty within a single geographic border. While the government works to make the nation more investor-friendly, we must now move to the next level: a holistic, home-grown ‘Marshall Plan’ to declare total war on poverty. We must transform this anti-poverty crusade into a clear path towards sustainable growth. Until this is done, we face a grim prospect: widespread poverty acting as a brake on the very political forces needed to drive national rejuvenation.
A debilitating price tag is attached to any system where politics is driven by hunger and ‘stomach infrastructure’ rather than propelled by programmes rooted in a clear philosophy. This is precisely why we lack the contest of ideas that has historically rescued nations from underdevelopment. Instead, we are left with a clash of personalities, all scrambling to drink from a diminishing trough. This is the unambiguous reality on the street, and it is becoming increasingly unavoidable.
Politics driven by hunger is always going to be obsessed with ‘sharing’. But what we really need – what we’re actually missing – is a pivot away from a consumption economy towards one built on production. It’s a tragedy that, on the eve of these elections, there’s no real alternative vision in sight. A flawed plan would be better than this void!
In this same Nigeria, the Action Group (AG), the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), and the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) – and later, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) – offered programmes that actually meant something. You didn’t have to agree with them, but they forced the electorate to look past their immediate needs and think about the bigger picture.
For example, the Four Cardinal Programmes of the UPN offered in 1978 still resonate today. Governments at all levels, starting from the local tier, would be well advised to revisit the UPN’s position on integrated rural development. That blueprint should be dusted off, updated and modernized, for it remains essential for transforming Nigeria’s rural economy. That this is being ignored by today’s contending forces is a stinging indictment of the entire political landscape.
The hard truth is that you can’t have real political loyalty in a system built on ‘stomach infrastructure.’ The two just don’t go together. Breaking this deadlock isn’t easy, but it’s a must; otherwise, we’re just spinning our wheels. We need a new way of doing things, something that blends old-school grassroots organizing with modern tech to get people behind a real economic plan. This requires a fresh crop of leaders to step up and lead the charge. In that sense, Seyi Tinubu’s City Boys Movement (CBM) is actually onto something. It still needs some work, but the movement shows it’s possible to break through the current mess.
I remain convinced that, in Nigeria, power is a ghost that never finds its rest. In this fated clime, our leaders don’t quit, they don’t resign, and they don’t retire. Like water reacting to heat, they merely change form: evaporating from one high office only to condense, heavier and more stubborn, in the next. They treat the seat of power not as a duty, but as an heirloom – installing their own children to occupy the spaces they once held. It is a revolving door for the elite that leaves the children of the poor outside in the cold, nursing wounds that never heal.
Still on ‘stomach infrastructure’, one might argue that it has deep cultural roots. Traditionally, people gravitated towards the compounds of ‘big men’ for sustenance. However, that practice belonged to a predominantly rural, agrarian past. Because our politics remains anchored in this hunger-driven dependency, it is clear the country has failed to make the vital transition from feudal-era relationships to a modern, productive economy.
This economic divide is the reason the ‘Ara Oko’ (villager) and the ‘Ara Eko’ (Lagosian) rarely cross paths. While the villager leaves his or her village – be it Ijebu-Jesa, my ‘Native Nazareth’ or elsewhere – simply to seek a foothold in the city, the Lagosian often departs only for a worthy sojourn abroad. Consequently, by the time the global sojourner begins sending foreign remittances back home, the rural migrant in Lagos is still struggling merely to make ends meet.
That may also be responsible for the profound distinction between being a ‘big boy’ and a ‘small man’. While the former possesses the vision and resources to make life truly worth living, the latter is often left merely to exist, adrift in a wide, wild world of struggle.
The staying power of men like Lamidi Adedibu, the late strongman of Ibadan politics, and former Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State was no accident. It was built on a gritty brand of paternalism that knows a loaf of bread today beats a blueprint for tomorrow every time. They understood that, out on the streets, politics isn’t some high-minded theory; it’s a raw, daily struggle for survival. In that world, ‘stomach infrastructure’ becomes a social contract written in bread and salt.
The people measure a leader simply by how easy he is to reach and how quickly he can put food on a neighbour’s table. By keeping their feet in the dust and meeting the people exactly where they are, Adedibu and Fayose turned political loyalty into a shared lifeline. These men grasped the hard truth that the elites conveniently ignore: you cannot sell a ‘grand vision’ to a man whose stomach is growling.
Again, a hungry man is an angry man, and an angry man is only a heartbeat away from a harvest of violence. This is precisely why, were Adedibu alive today, he would remain the ‘Garrison Commander’ of the ‘amala’ politics of Ibadan and the wider Yorubaland. He was the undisputed master of the communal table; he understood that in our context, being physically present and sharing what you have counts for everything.
Fayose operates on that same frequency! ‘Alaafin Molete’ and ‘Oshokomole’ breathed life into ‘stomach infrastructure,’ and our political landscape has known no peace since. That’s why Fayose will be a factor in Ekiti politics for a long time because he speaks the language of the ordinary man. Bottomline, so long as the ‘street reality’ remains one of hunger, any leader who shows up in that moment of need will always hold the cards. As long as the economy remains stuck in a pre-industrial state, consumption-led ‘stomach infrastructure’ will persist, even when what the country truly requires is a pivot towards production.
Given our population growth rates, one could argue that this target is not ambitious enough. For the sake of social cohesion and sustainable growth, we must mount a defence against the politics of immediate gain. This requires a decisive, irreversible shift in how we conceive of development. We must move away from a shallow focus on ‘projects’ and towards development from the base, which is the true starting point of all national progress.
One might safely argue that issuing a single Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) – transforming a beneficiary into a functioning economic actor – is more vital than constructing a thousand flyovers. History supports this, stretching back through the centuries. The most striking example is found in the United Kingdom with the Domesday Book (1086). Originally commissioned to survey the land and formalize holdings, it laid the groundwork for secure property rights. This process eventually helped propel Great Britain into a formidable global power, fueling the Industrial Revolution and fundamentally altering the course of human existence.