-By Abdul Mahmud
There is a certain comfort in blaming leaders. It absolves us of responsibility. It allows us to stand at a moral distance from the foolishness of our own choices. But every now and then, a harder truth insists on being heard. A nation is often a reflection of the people who choose its leaders. If that is so, then Nigerians must look into the mirror and resist the temptation to look away.
Not too long ago, many Nigerians convinced themselves that the late Muhammadu Buhari would transform this country into something resembling order and discipline. Some spoke of the herald of the new Nigerian Eldorado as though it were merely a matter of transplanting personal charm into power. They said his body language alone would tame corruption, restore dignity, and pummel misgovernance into submission. It was a curious faith. It was not grounded in evidence or history. It was the act of a dubious collective reimagination. This was a man whose past was not hidden. His record as a military ruler was marked by authoritarian impulses and a troubling relationship with civil liberties. But, he was recast before our eyes as a democrat, and as the symbol of integrity. He became, for many, a moral corrective to the chaos of civilian rule.
The past was not interrogated. It was erased or explained away with cavalier disregard.
At the same time, in another corner of our national life, a different kind of belief took hold. Some Nigerians, led by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, insisted that 5G technology, not the global COVID virus, was responsible for the deaths that swept across continents. It was a claim that stood in defiance of science, evidence, and reason. It found an audience. It found believers. It spread.
It is tempting to draw a line between these two moments, argue that one belongs to politics and the other to religion, and that one is more rational than the other. But that line is thinner than we think. The same habits of mind run through both. The same willingness to suspend critical thought. The same hunger for abecedarian answers to complex problems. We are, in many ways, cut from the same adire, woven with threads of impatience and the deep desire for shortcuts. We want transformation without the slow work of building institutions. We want salvation in the form of a single individual. We want certainty in a world that offers none. And so we create myths. We elevate men into Messiahs. We defend them long after they failed us.
The tragedy is not that leaders failed us. That is almost inevitable. The tragedy is that we repeatedly set ourselves up for failure. We do not ask enough questions. We do not demand enough evidence. We are too easily swayed by rhetoric, by image, and by the promise of change that is never clearly defined.
Now, consider the strange arguments that filled our public space at the time.
Someone declared that he would vote for Buhari even if he presented NEPA bill as a certificate. It was said half in jest, but it revealed something deeper. A willingness to lower standards. A readiness to excuse what should never be excused. In that moment, the office of the president was diminished, not by the candidate, but by the expectations of the electorate. Then, there were the campaign grounds that took on the character of the mystical. Words like Bulaba emerged, not as meaningful political ideas, but as symbols of a certain unseriousness. Politics became more of mediocrity. Substance gave way to the superficial. And we cheered.
What explains this pattern?
Part of it lies in our history. Years of instability have created the longing for strong figures. Economic hardship has made the promise of quick fixes more appealing. But these explanations do not absolve us. They only help us understand the context in which our choices are made. The more important question is what we do with that understanding. Do we continue on this path, moving from one illusion to another? Or do we begin the harder work of cultivating a more critical public culture?
Democracy cannot be stronger than the quality of thought that sustains it. It cannot rise above the poor intellectual habits of citizens. If we reward mediocrity, we will be governed by it. If we celebrate ignorance, it will find its way into power. If we refuse to learn from our mistakes, we will repeat them. This is not an argument for cynicism. It is not a call to despair. It is a call to responsibility. The responsibility to question. The responsibility to demand clarity. The responsibility to resist the easy allure of narratives that flatter our hopes but ignore reality. It is also a call to humility. The temptation is always to see ourselves as different from those we criticise. To believe that we are more discerning, more rational, and more enlightened. But the truth is less comforting. The same country that produces followers of conspiracy theories also produces voters who invest blind faith in lacklustre politicians.
The difference is often one of degree, not of kind.
The uninspiring pastor we mock and the insipid politician we defend are products of the same environment. An environment where critical thinking is not consistently nurtured. Where authority is rarely questioned. Where belief often takes precedence over evidence. To change our politics, we must first change ourselves. We must become citizens who are less impressed by slogans and more interested in substance. Citizens who understand that governance is not magic. It is a complex process that requires competence, integrity, and accountability. We must also hold on to memory. One of our greatest weaknesses is our tendency to forget. We move on too quickly. We allow narratives to be rewritten without challenge. We permit history to be reshaped to suit present interests. In doing so, we lose the ability to learn from our past.
The next time a candidate is presented as a saviour, we must ask harder questions. What is his record? What are his ideas? How does he intend to achieve what he promises? Perhaps, and most importantly, what are we willing to do as citizens to support or challenge his actions?
The mirror stays the same. It does not lie. It reflects not only our leaders, but ourselves. In that reflection are our indulgences and our excuses, our appetite for easy answers, and our impatience with the slow discipline that nation-building demands. We see the myths we have created and the men we have elevated beyond reason. We see how quickly we trade scrutiny for sentiment, how eagerly we surrender judgment at the altar of hope. The image is not flattering, but it is honest. And honesty, however uncomfortable, is the beginning of repair.
If we do not like what we see, the task before us is neither cosmetic nor convenient. It is moral and intellectual. We must relearn the habit of questioning, recover the courage to doubt, and cultivate the public culture that prizes evidence over enthusiasm. We must become citizens who insist on standards, who measure words against records, and who understand that leadership is not a miracle to be received but a responsibility to be examined. This is the harder path. It offers no instant gratification and no intoxicating promises of overnight transformation. But it is the only path that leads away from the cycles of disappointment that have defined our politics. It is only at that point that we may begin to entertain the type of politics that doesn’t lend itself to absurdity, less burdened by tragedy, and more worthy of the politics anchored not in illusion but in clarity, not in the seductions of blind faith but in the discipline of informed choice, not in the fleeting charisma of individuals but in the enduring strength of institutions and the eternal vigilance of citizens.
The mirror we refuse to face doesn’t hide itself away from us; it stares at our gaze, unblinking and unrelenting, compelling us to confront the difficult truth that the future we aspire to will into being remains stubbornly beyond our reach for as long as we refuse to face, with honesty and courage, the reality reflected back at us.
The mirror stands before us. Look into it. What truth dares to look back at you?