Power, when unmoored from collective consent, mutates into a brittle instrument; loud in posture, hollow in endurance. In the Igala nation, the recurring paralysis of political influence is not merely a consequence of demographic arithmetic or federal marginality; it is the outcome of a misconfigured elite architecture that has failed to achieve social acceptability. A power elite, defined as a relatively small constellation of actors occupying commanding heights of economic capital, educational prestige, political machinery, and coercive institutions; exists in every functioning society. What differentiates sustainable polities from collapsing ones is not the existence of elites, but the legitimacy with which such elites are constituted, circulated, restrained, and symbolically recognized by the people they claim to represent.
The Igala condition illustrates a classical pathology of elite formation: concentration without consecration. Authority has been accumulated since the creation of Kogi State, but not canonized. Influence has been exercised, but not internalized by the social body as rightful. The result is an elite class perceived less as a stabilizing vanguard and more as a predatory enclave; detached from ancestral memory, insulated from popular accountability, and intoxicated by proximity to transient power centers. Where legitimacy is absent, obedience becomes coerced, loyalty transactional, and resistance inevitable.
Elite theory is unequivocal on this matter. Vilfredo Pareto warned that societies decay when elite circulation ossifies. Gaetano Mosca insisted that ruling minorities survive only when they cultivate moral and intellectual leadership. C. Wright Mills exposed the danger of power elites who mistake institutional access for moral mandate. The Igala elite dilemma sits squarely within this theoretical lineage. A narrow cadre has intermittently occupied offices, accessed rents, negotiated alliances, and spoken in the name of the people; yet without undergoing the ritual of collective validation that transforms power into authority.
Acceptability is not sentimental approval; it is structural recognition. It emerges when elites are seen as custodians of shared destiny rather than private accumulation. It is produced through coherence of values, visibility of sacrifice, continuity of service, and alignment with the metaphysical and historical consciousness of the people. In Igala cosmology, leadership was never purely administrative. It was moral, ancestral, and covenantal. Authority flowed from perceived harmony between the leader, the living, the dead, and the unborn. Modernity disrupted this order, but it did not erase the psychological grammar through which legitimacy is still evaluated.
What replaced ancestral validation was not a superior ethical system, but an opportunistic scramble for state-derived relevance. Titles without trust. Offices without ownership. Representation without rootedness. The elite became episodic, not institutional; competitive, not cumulative.
In the last decades, we noticed each cycle produced new power brokers whose primary allegiance was upward to governors, parties, ex governors, unknown patrons or political investors; rather than inward, to Igala collective interest. In this configuration, elite consensus became impossible, long-term strategy implausible, and internal betrayal routine.
A society without an accepted power elite does not become egalitarian; it becomes vulnerable. External actors fill the vacuum. Decisions affecting land, resources, political bargaining, and cultural survival are made elsewhere, by those with clearer elite coherence. The tragedy is not that the Igala lack capable individuals, but that capability has not been aggregated into a respected, enduring, and disciplined elite bloc. Brilliance remains individualized; influence dissipates; memory resets after every electoral cycle.
To constitute a legitimate Igala power elite is not to enthrone oligarchy, but to formalize responsibility. It requires deliberate selection, moral screening, and cultural grounding. Economic elites must demonstrate productive, not extractive, wealth. Educational elites must translate knowledge into institutional capacity, not personal escape. Political elites must operate as trustees, not mercenaries. Military and security elites must be protectors of communal dignity, not instruments of repression. Above all, such elites must be seen—visibly, consistently, painfully—to place collective survival above private advancement.
Valuation follows acceptability. A people do not defend what they do not recognize as theirs. Until the Igala elite is perceived as an extension of the people’s historical struggle and future aspiration, it will remain politically fragile, socially contested, and strategically ineffective. Power acquired without legitimacy is temporary; legitimacy cultivated without power is impotent. Survival demands their convergence.
The choice before the Igala nation is stark. Continue in elite disarray—where power is episodic, loyalty fluid, and relevance negotiated in whispers—or undertake the arduous work of elite constitution anchored in social legitimacy. History is unforgiving to societies that confuse access with authority. Where elites fail to earn acceptance, decline does not announce itself; it simply becomes permanent.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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