In every society, there must be a master and a slave—but when the scale tilts so brutally that the poor are condemned to permanent servitude under the weight of systemic injustice, civilization itself begins to decay. Nigeria, a nation once pulsating with youthful promise, now crawls under the never ending burden of transactional employment. Jobs—once the reward of competence and learning—have become the trophies of privilege. Merit has been murdered, and poverty stands trial for daring to dream.
The phrase “job for sale” has become a cynical hymn in the Nigerian job market. It no longer shocks the conscience; it merely confirms what everyone already knows—that opportunity in this clime now bows to the altar of affluence. Recruitment desks have turned into auction houses where destiny is priced, bargained, and transferred to the highest bidder. From ministries to teaching boards, from civil service commissions to hospitals, a shadow economy thrives—where a job slot is sold for ₦1 Million, ₦2 Million, or even ₦5 Million etc. Those who cannot pay are branded “lazy youth,” while those who can are decorated with undeserved office titles.
The tragedy is neither new nor hidden. It is institutionalized hypocrisy. The child of a poor teacher or the roadside vendor, who burnt candles to earn a degree, now competes not with intellect but with inherited surnames. In this distorted hierarchy, the poor remain slaves—not by divine decree, but by human corruption. As Bishop David Oyedepo once warned, “When systems reward mediocrity, destiny suffers miscarriage.” Indeed, the destiny of Nigeria’s youth has been traded for brown envelopes and sealed recommendation letters.
What began as quiet nepotism has evolved into a full-blown market of bribery. Ministries that should symbolise integrity now wear the garments of extortion. Recruitment exercises are whispered about in coded tongues: “If you don’t settle, you don’t enter.” This is not governance—it is governance for sale. A society that commodifies employment desecrates both morality and meritocracy. It creates a permanent underclass of the poor, doomed to obey, while the rich multiply their dominion.
The Holy Scripture laments this decay with haunting precision: “The labourer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7). Yet in today’s Nigeria, the labourer must pay before he labours. What a paradox! What a desecration of divine order! Prophet TB Joshua once declared, “When money becomes your master, humanity becomes your slave.” And here we are, enslaved not by colonial chains but by internal corruption, bound by the invisible hand of greed that strangles justice at its root.
The moral implication is catastrophic. When a graduate prays not for skill but for “connection,” when parents sell land to bribe recruiters, when offices are filled not with brilliance but with bribery, the soul of the nation bleeds. The poor are no longer merely unemployed—they are spiritually exhausted. They have become slaves to a system that feeds on their helplessness. Nigeria, the giant of Africa, has thus become a paradoxical plantation—where opportunity is a master, and the poor are its eternal servants.
The Federal Government cannot claim ignorance. Job racketeering must be declared an act of economic terrorism, punishable with severe legal sanctions. Recruitment must migrate into full transparency, monitored by credible third parties, and made visible to the public eye. Civil service should not be a privilege of the connected but a covenant of fairness between the state and its citizens. To continue otherwise is to baptize corruption and call it culture.
True greatness is not built by enslaving the poor but by liberating their potential. The market woman’s child deserves the same chance as the senator’s son. The pen must again outweigh the purse. Until justice becomes the gatekeeper of every recruitment exercise, Nigeria will remain a country where the poor work hardest but eat last—where every society has its master and slave, but the slaves never stop multiplying.
The time to break the chain is now.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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