Betrayals

Year after year, people like me have oscillated between belief and bruises.

As a reporter, I have interviewed politicians who spoke passionately about youth empowerment, only to surround themselves with aging loyalists once in office. I have watched elected officials switch parties with the agility of athletes, abandoning the platforms on which they were elected. I have heard governors and presidents blame predecessors for four years straight, as if leadership were a perpetual campaign speech rather than an opportunity for responsibility.

I have seen perennial contenders, who for decades have sought one office or the other, insisting they are the blueprints for revival. Their supporters call them experienced, but their critics call them emblematic of recycled ambitions. What is undoubted is that aspiration is abundant; trust is scarce.

In Nigeria, conviction itself can feel like betrayal depending on which side of the policy you stand. That is tied to the fact that leadership here rarely feels like a shared project, and more like a contest of camps.

The campaign seasons are upon us. We have seen that campaign seasons are carnivals of proximity when politicians walk dusty roads, enter markets and sit on plastic chairs in rural compounds. They promise listening ears. Then victory comes, and distance follows. They buy corns from roadside traders. Convoys replace conversations. Press statements replace presence.

Too often we adjust to their deceits. That is perhaps our greatest flaw. We adjust to hardship. We adjust to fuel scarcity. We adjust to power outages. We adjust to insecurity by learning new routes and curfews. We adjust so well that leaders mistake our resilience for satisfaction. But resilience is not consent.

When students stay home because universities are shut by strikes, that is betrayal. When graduates roam streets clutching certificates that attract no employers, that is betrayal. When citizens fund their own security through vigilante contributions because the state has failed to protect them, that is betrayal.

The betrayal of the Nigerian youth is the sharpest cut. We were told education was the ladder. We climbed it. At the top, we found no roof, only open sky and uncertainty. Many now seek visas more eagerly than voters’ cards. Departure has become a development plan.

And, yet, there is another layer of betrayal we seldom confront: our own.

We sell votes. We defend politicians from our ethnic groups even when they fail spectacularly. We reduce complex policy debates to tribal arithmetic. We amplify propaganda if it flatters our bias. We excuse corruption when it “benefits our side.”

We cannot demand integrity from leaders while romanticising impunity in private.

Sometimes I wonder whether betrayal is woven into our political DNA or merely sustained by weak institutions. Our judiciary struggles under pressure. Our legislature too often appears subordinate. Our parties lack ideology, functioning more as vehicles for ambition than vessels of philosophy.

But I refuse to surrender to cynicism. There are public servants who work quietly, diligently. There are civil society actors who risk comfort for truth. There are journalists who refuse brown envelopes. There are judges who still read the law without fear. There are young politicians who speak the language of reform with refreshing clarity. They are not loud enough yet. But they exist.

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Betrayal hurts because expectation exists. If we truly had no hope, disappointment would not sting. The fact that we still argue passionately about elections, still analyse budgets, still demand transparency, means something inside us refuses to die.

Perhaps betrayal is the crucible through which political maturity is forged. Perhaps every disappointment sharpens our discernment. We are learning, painfully, that charisma is not competence. That slogans are not strategy. That incumbency is not immortality.

I no longer believe in political messiahs, I believe in systems, I believe in institutions that outlive individuals and I believe in citizens who ask questions long after inauguration ceremonies end.

Still, I feel betrayed by broken promises, by squandered opportunities, by leaders who confuse power with entitlement. But I am also challenged. Challenged to hold conversations beyond sentiment. Challenged to refuse silence when governance falters.

Nigeria stands, as always, at a crossroads. We can continue the cycle of adoration and anger, or we can cultivate a culture where leaders understand that trust is sacred capital.

I still believe in Nigeria. Not blindly, not romantically, but deliberately. And perhaps that is the most rebellious response to betrayal of all.

My final take: I know that governing a country of over 200 million restless, diverse, wounded people is no child’s play. But I feel betrayed because sincerity often appears seasonal.