Nigeria’s political house is burning, and the first flames are not from elections or bad policies—they are from the godfather networks tightening their grip on democracy. The nation now moves like a bus whose steering has been seized by shadowy hands. As Italian judge Giovanni Falcone once warned in his war against the Sicilian Mafia, “The mafia is not invincible; it is a human phenomenon and, like all human phenomena, it has a beginning and an end.” Yet in Nigeria, this mafia-like political order is expanding, suffocating truth, and normalizing corruption as culture.
At the center of this crisis is a dangerous evolution: political actors who behave like feudal lords, determining who rises, who falls, and who must crawl. This is the inverted beginning of the story—the heaviest weight—because Nigeria is witnessing a democracy governed by “godfathers,” not by voters. As Roberto Saviano, the Italian anti-mafia writer, once said, “The mafia is a mentality before it becomes a crime.” That mentality has crept into Nigeria’s political bloodstream—loyalty to patrons above nation, silence above integrity, and fear above freedom.
This mafialization has trickled down into every tier of governance. Elections are no longer contests of ideas but selections/ auctions of influence. Young leaders with competence are pushed aside for loyalists with pockets. Policies that should strengthen national progress are redesigned to strengthen political syndicates. The system now resembles a marketplace where fear buys silence and compliance buys survival. Like the late Italian prosecutor Paolo Borsellino said, “The fight against the Mafia must be a moral one, not just a political one.” Nigeria’s politics has lost that moral compass.
If not urgently confronted, the future is ominous. A nation captured by mafia politics eventually drifts into democratic decay—institutions collapse, citizens lose faith, and development stalls. The warning signs already echo across the land: rising voter apathy, weaponized poverty, and deepening ethnic fractures. Nigeria risks becoming a country where hope is outsourced and destiny is subcontracted to criminal networks in agbada.
The prescription is blunt but necessary: dismantle the godfather architecture, empower institutions, elevate merit, and restore the sanctity of elections. Civil society, the media, religious leaders, young innovators, and reform-minded politicians must form a united firewall against political mafias. Without decisive action, Nigeria will not just lose its democracy—it will lose its future.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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