Military Dictatorship

By Oladoja M.O

In the grand, often tumultuous, theatre of African politics, a deeply entrenched and insidious narrative persists: the Messiah-Villain Binary. This simplistic, yet devastating, framework casts political leaders not as fallible public servants, but as either divine saviours or malevolent destroyers. It’s a binary that suffocates nuance, stifles accountability, and, in a continent desperate for democratic maturity, acts as a corrosive cancer on the body politic. We must call this what it is: a dangerous delusion that has shackled Africa’s progress for far too long.

This orientation, a relic of post-colonial strongman politics, reduces the complex art of governance to a moral melodrama. Citizens, conditioned to see their leaders as larger-than-life figures, become spectators in a perpetual battle between good and evil. When a new leader emerges, they are instantly elevated to the status of a messiah, the one chosen to slay the dragons of poverty, corruption, and instability. Any opposition is, by default, cast as the villain, a saboteur working against the people’s will. This is not just a rhetorical device; it’s a profound psychological trap that prevents a healthy, critical relationship between the electorate and those they elect.

Look no further than the story of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. In the euphoric dawn of independence in 1980, Mugabe was the indisputable messiah. He had led the liberation struggle, promised the people a new land, and was seen as the architect of a new, prosperous Zimbabwe. But as his rule solidified, dissent grew. His staunchest supporters did not see his brutal suppression of the Gukurahundi massacres and his increasingly authoritarian tendencies as the actions of a flawed leader, but rather as the necessary evils required to defeat the ‘villains’—the opposition, foreign agents, and internal critics. This narrative allowed him to dismantle democratic institutions and cling to power for nearly four decades, all while his country’s economy imploded. The messiah had morphed into a tyrant, but the binary, with its pre-assigned roles, kept many from seeing the reality until it was too late.

A similar pattern can be seen in Rwanda, albeit with a different trajectory. Following the 1994 genocide, Paul Kagame was hailed as the man who pulled his nation from the brink of total annihilation. He is undeniably a messiah figure for many Rwandans, credited with bringing stability, order, and remarkable economic growth. Yet, this messianic status has made it incredibly difficult for a genuine political opposition to emerge. Critics, journalists, and political rivals who question his iron grip on power are often swiftly silenced, accused of undermining national unity or of being sympathisers of the genocidal past. 

The messiah’s narrative, while perhaps initially justified, has become a tool to legitimize the suppression of democratic pluralism. The ‘villain’ is no longer the genocidal regime, but anyone who dares to challenge the man who defeated it. This is a profound danger: when a leader’s infallibility is tied to a nation’s salvation, dissent becomes tantamount to treason.

The messiah-villain binary is a disease that festers in the heart of African electoral politics. It’s visible in the fervent, almost religious, rallies where supporters see their candidate not as a political leader with a manifesto, but as an oracle. The 2017 Kenyan election and the subsequent crisis offered a stark illustration. Both Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga were cast as messianic figures by their respective supporters. For Odinga’s base, he was the long-awaited liberator, the man who would finally lead them to a promised land of social justice. For Kenyatta’s supporters, he represented stability and continuity, the man protecting the country from the ‘villainous’ forces of instability. This emotional fervour, fueled by tribal and regional loyalties, led to a deeply polarised society where compromise became impossible. The result was not just political gridlock, but a cycle of violence and deep-seated animosity that continues to haunt the nation. The election wasn’t a contest of ideas; it was a crusade.

This issue is not just a problem of the past; it remains alive and well today. In Nigeria, the perennial politics of ‘saviour’ and ‘enemy’ plague the electoral landscape. From the military regimes to the current democratic dispensation, every election is framed as a life-or-death struggle against forces of darkness. A new candidate emerges, promising to sweep away the corruption of the past, and is instantly elevated to a messianic pedestal. Yet, once in power, the same old patterns of patronage and unaccountability emerge. The people, having invested their faith in a person rather than in institutions and processes, are left disillusioned, only to repeat the cycle with the next messiah figure. This prevents the building of strong, independent institutions, a free press, an impartial judiciary, and a non-partisan civil service, because the entire political system revolves around the individual, not the rules.

The messiah-villain binary is a trap, a narrative cul-de-sac from which genuine democratic progress cannot escape. It’s a cancer because it preys on hope, exploiting the legitimate frustrations of the populace for political gain. It turns citizens into blind followers and opponents into sworn enemies. This dangerous orientation must be dismantled. We must stop looking for messiahs. There are no magical saviours.

There are only men and women who are fallible, flawed, and accountable to the people they serve. We must demand a politics of substance, not spectacle. We must judge our leaders not by the promises they make on the campaign trail, but by their respect for democratic institutions, their commitment to the rule of law, and their willingness to be held to account.

The true liberation of Africa as a continent and Nigeria as a nation will not come from a single hero, but from a critical and engaged citizenry that understands that the power to govern belongs to them and that no politician, no matter how charismatic, is a god. It is time to retire the messiah, to dismantle the villain, and to embrace the hard, unglamorous work of building a true and lasting democracy.

Oladoja M.O writes from Abuja and can be reached at: mayokunmark@gmail.com.

By Abdullahi D. Hassan

Nigeria is a nation with Hydra lineament. For a long time, its narratives became a phenomenon in scholarship and startle those that are not abreast of Nigeria’s convoluted history, ethnic chauvinism, election rigging, religious intolerance, cankerworm corruption and heartless politicians with megalomaniac habits, driving pleasure in shady governance to submerge their citizens into gross poverty.

The sarcastic ‘Giant of Africa’ falls into a harrowing moment. Nearly all of the architecture of Nigeria is profoundly rotten, and its stench is sprinkled with endemic corruption, lack of patriotism, decay in moral values, transparent nepotism, and killing is crossbones across the regions. From the fanatic massacres, notably by Boko Haram and bandits.

After three decades of military tyrants and juntas, 1999 turned new dawn for Nigeria. The nation shifted from military dictatorship to civilian government. Policymakers, political pundits, and intelligentsia ascertain Nigeria’s prospect is on the trajectory of advancement. Albeit, the ultra development in multifaceted sectors. Within a decade of pseudo-civilian government, the country’s destiny is trapped in quicksand. Due to ingrained corruption by the three arms of government: executive, legislature and judiciary.

Nonetheless, the dominant ethnic groups, Hausa from the North, a Muslim enclave and fraction of Christian, Igbo from the South, a rife of Christian and Yoruba from the West, shared hybridity of Islam and Christianity. Those ethnic cleavages race for Tour de France in tribal wars, hegemonic politics, religious politics and domineering politics according to the dictum of language, faith and region. Amid the wanton rascality done by the “Zombie”, like Fela, the Afrobeat legend branded soldiers.

Thus, the failure of the so-called democratic government unbridled the ‘darkest History of Nigeria’. A typical Hausa accuses Igbo of the putsch and eliminating Northern leaders, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Prime Minister and Sir Ahmadu Bello, a remarkable figure to Northerners. In 1966 a bloody coup was orchestrated by Igbo officers. Igbo talk of persecution and pogrom against their race in the North. Among the factors that emanate the unfortunate Nigerian-Biafran war spanned between July 6, 1967, to January 15, 1970.

Furthermore, from the 1999 political dispensation to the current predicament, the country challenges twig onto gloom-ridden forms; politicians turned into confidence tricksters, parliament became the ‘House of Deception’, religious institutions metamorphosed into a commercial enterprise, journalists supplanted into puppets controlled by the connected few and higher learning academic reposition to woman’s assault domain. The former American ambassador, John Campbell, from 2004 to 2007, described politicians in his book Nigeria Dancing On The Brink “the civilian political class behaved as badly and in much the same way as its military predecessor”.

The most populous black nation on earth is about to be a Banana Republic. In the Northern part of the country, hardly a day passes, from sunrise to sunset, without disheartening news breaking in mainstream media. Boko Haram, ISWAP insurgents or bandits kidnap and maim innocent people. The terrorist marauders hold certain villages in the North-West. Similarly, hundreds of public schools are shut down for fear of abduction.

The most recurring questions preoccupying my faculty: Who will lead Nigeria to the Promised Land? When will Nigeria be exempt from being a nepotistic state to an excellent land, with leaders handling the nation based on the principles of democracy? What are the required features to alter the awful chronicles of Nigeria? Why are we divided in a discourse of religious sentiment, ethnic oblique and regional dominance rather than championing the furtherance of Nigeria?

Surreally, Nigeria is the most religious nation on earth! But in reality, it is the most irreligious in the world. The proliferation of mosques and churches crisscross the length and breadth of Nigeria. The anointed citizens were sponsored to Mecca and Jerusalem for pilgrimage from the government treasury. Despite public schools turning into rubble, pupils sat on ruined floors. Pregnant women wallowed in a dearth of medical personnel and drugs to survive early death in rural areas. Another outstanding hypocrisy of the Abrahamic faith’s leadership in Nigeria, the schools were built with the alms of followers. Such schools are barricades for the common man to enrol his children. Their subtle aim was to propagate adulterate gospel and split the masses based on emblems of Christianity and Islam.

As Chinua Achebe says in one of his pieces of literature, The Trouble with Nigeria, “There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leader to the rise to the responsibility, to challenge of personal example which is the hallmark of true leadership”. The book was written 38 years ago. The quote portrayed the decay of systematic dwindling in leadership style patterns. Although there was relative peace in the country at the time, we could travel thousands of miles from Lagos to Borno with confidence. In the absence of the highwaymen and any other obstruction.

Nevertheless, the dethroned Emir of Kano, erstwhile Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Khalifah Mahammed Sanusi II. He mentioned in his impressive Tedx speech entitled Overcoming The Fear of Vested Interest, “the world’s largest producers of crude oil that do not refine its own petroleum products”. In addition, the reverend Economist, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of Finance and Director General of World Trade Organization. As stated in her book Fighting Corruption is Dangerous. She recounts how billions of dollars were siphoned in a fraud called oil subsidy intervention. Mrs Iweala’s doggedness toward deceitful oil cartels and markets led to the kidnapping of her aged mother. Those two paradigm exegeses gave a sinister view of modern-day Nigeria from the spectrum of the clandestine elite.

The absurdities mentioned above triggered the Igbo to quest for a breakaway from Nigeria and rekindle the Republic of Biafra under the tutelage of Nnamdi Kanu, the ringleader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). The Yoruba seek Oduduwa nation, as some Northerners dream of an Islamic state to govern their affairs based on Shari’a. Those juxtapositions defined the nationhood of Nigeria as a conduit of dissolution.