5 ideas
'Naija no dey carry last' is the popular boast that Nigerians are never outdone. Adesanmi turns the boast back on the country: Nigeria does come first, but in absurdity, waste, and official shamelessness, even as the state underperforms in ways that make the swagger ridiculous. Read this way, a people's favorite self-flattering slogan shows exactly where their self-image and their institutions have come apart.
Bad leadership persists because citizens defend 'their own' looter along ethnic, religious, or party lines, and treat the theft as a win for their group. That defense makes accountability impossible. Adesanmi blames this complicit followership as much as the political class, because it is what lets corruption go unpunished.
Intense, visible religiosity coexists with pervasive corruption because prayer and prophecy become a way to hand problems to God. Things that need policy, institutions, and personal ethics get treated as matters for the altar. Pastors and politicians profit from this arrangement, and the gap between how devout the society looks and how people actually behave widens instead of closing.
Nigerian public life piles up titles like 'His Excellency', 'Distinguished Senator', chieftaincy honors, and honorary doctorates. These titles mark status and demand deference, and they are detached from any service actually done. The ritual of address becomes a stand-in for accountability, and the office-holder's dignity is treated as more important than the public's welfare.
In May 2014, weeks after Boko Haram abducted about 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, First Lady Patience Jonathan held a televised meeting and wept on camera, exclaiming 'there is God o!' The episode is a well-known target of Adesanmi's satire of the Jonathan era. It shows state power answering a national tragedy with melodrama, suspicion of the victims, and theater instead of action.