Ronald Reagan,  former President of the US, once said that “African leaders spend like drunken sailors; only that drunken sailors spend their own money while African leaders spend public money”. This opinion decries endemic corruption and the resultant underdevelopment in Africa; it reflects strongly on Nigeria, which is prodigiously endowed with human and natural resources yet flags the ignominious moniker of “poverty capital of Planet Earth”. Following the 2023 presidential election, an author referred to Nigerian leaders as “the scoundrels that are systematically sinking the ship of the Nigerian State”. In same vein, Majeed Dahiru held, on  Kakaki TV, that Nigeria’s “political leaders act like drunken sailors aboard a sinking ship”. The thematic string that ties the above averments are the metaphors of “Drunken captains” and a  “sinking ship” hence they informed the title and essence of this piece.
Currently, Nigeria strains from the senseless squandering of the nation’s resources by bleeders who masquerade as leaders while a mammoth majority of citizens wallows in abject poverty. The heartless display of affluence by authority figures belie the economic strangulation of the masses. Besides the brazen abuse of public office, political office holders in Nigeria recklessly display such personal wealth that cannot, by any stretch of the most liberal imagination, be justified within the limits of their legitimate income. From building trophy houses that only massage their bloated ego to acquiring outrageously expensive personal effects and holding lavish parties, Nigerian public officers constitute the worst role models. Patrice Ukposi, an attorney, thinks the phenomenon bothers on neurosis.   The Nigerian President lives in the multi-mansion maximum security exclusivity of Aso Rock, far away from the reach of everyday Nigerians.
He rides in a 36-car motorcade, has a double digit jetliner presidential fleet and has two stretch limousines, SUVs and six outriders at his service during overseas trips .  The abnormality of this is made profound when compared with his British counterpart who works in a modestly furnished office, lives in an equally modestly furnished apartment at No. 10 Downing Street, which  is open 24/7 to everyday traffic and flies British Airways. The current Senate President who, Dahiru holds, “appointed thirty-three aides, for starters” competes rather favourably in this irresponsible display of opulence.  In a video clip, a former senator  displayed an array of expensive watches, a wardrobe stock to the brim with designer clothes, shoes, diamond-studded gold rings and chains, suitcases of vintage leather, perfumes and the luxurious interior of his expansive bedroom.
Also,  numerous expensive cars and power bikes adorn his sprawling garage. Ukposi is right;  this brazen display of obviously ill-gotten wealth indicates neurosis and calls for urgent psychiatric attention. Ironically, this recklessness is taking place in a country with high unemployment rate, approximately 30 million out of school (OOS) population and an economy that applies 97per cent of its revenue to service a debt burden (Q3, 2024) of $43.0 billion. By their docility, Nigerians have promoted evil to the highest positions in the land. Resultantly, Dele Farotimi and other crusaders who are courageous enough to still call evil by its name are being hounded and persecuted by evil doers in authority. The Nigerian Ivory Tower has been discolored by umpires turned electoral auctioneers. The hitherto rugged legs of the Bench have been broken and the wig smeared.
The clergies, the supposed keepers of the nation’s morality, have been drawn into the rot of crass materialism. Obviously, the Nigerian ship is sinking and the captains are stupefied by their neurotic quest for materialism oblivious of the fact that everyone will go down below if and when the ship sinks.  Legislators approve for themselves monthly allowances that economically set them apart from the rest of the society thereby creating a social disconnect. Billions of Naira are spent on a presidential yacht and an additional jet to the double-digit presidential fleet; billions of Naira are allocation to nonexistent offices and more than eight billion Naira spent by the presidency on travels in the first quarter of 2024. Within the same period, State Governors collectively spent more than N968billion on refreshments. In less than three days, a loan request by the Presidency for more than N1trillion was approved by a complacent and compliant legislature.
Certainly, the captains of the Nigerian ship are drunken and the ship is lurching towards an economic abyss that might precipitate social upheaval of an unimaginable magnitude. At the state level, a drunken legislature of twenty-four whimsically increased the State budget by “more than N70billion”; this translates to N2.9billion per member. Talk of drunkenness. The height of the drunkenness of Nigeria’s captains is the current contemplation to create additional thirty-one States to make for sixty-seven States in a federation where not more than three of the existing thirty-six States are solvent. The simple supposition is that the legislators are striving to create more points of looting to serve their selfish interest. Like iguanas deaf to advice, the drunken captains of our sinking ship are lost in vice. Intoxicated by their ill-gotten loot, they are suffering from impaired decision-making while tightly clutching the helms of governance with incapable hands.
Therefore, Nigerians, especially the youth, must brace up for the generational struggle for political and economic emancipation from the stranglehold of swashbuckling psychopathic scoundrels who obviously are bent on sinking the ship of the Nigerian State.

Jason Osai
Osai lectures in Rivers State University.