Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo recently said President Bola Tinubu may be willing to fix Nigeria, but that no leader can fix the country without fixing the broken system. There is sense in that statement.
Any Nigerian who has lived through the last fifty years knows the system is broken. We do not need a conference to confirm it. We meet it every day.
We meet it when there is no electricity, when a road is awarded, commissioned, celebrated, and collapses before the next rainy season. We meet it in offices where files do not move unless somebody “helps” them. We meet it at checkpoints, hospitals, schools, licensing offices, and local governments, where small authority often becomes private business.
So yes, corruption is not only in Abuja. It is also on the street. It is in the market, the office, the queue we jump, the invoice we inflate, the rule we dodge, and the shortcut we justify.
Sometimes, Nigeria is not working because we are quietly removing the screws ourselves.
But we must be careful with this “the system is broken” argument. A system does not break itself. A broken system has beneficiaries. It has people who profit from confusion, delay, scarcity, weak regulation, and public silence. It has people who know that if the system starts working, their own private toll gate will close.
That is why leadership cannot hide behind the system. Leadership controls the strongest levers of that system. The market woman did not appoint the police leadership. The taxi driver did not award the road contract. The teacher did not design procurement abuse. The young graduate did not capture government agencies. The ordinary Nigerian may participate in small corruption, but the people in power design, protect, and benefit from the larger structure.
Yes, citizens must change.
We cannot keep bribing, cutting corners, praising questionable wealth, and defending thieves because they come from our tribe, church, mosque, party, or village. We cannot demand accountability only when our enemies are involved.
But leadership must go first because leadership sets the tone.
When leaders waste money, people learn to waste. When leaders protect friends, people lose faith in justice. When leaders reward loyalty above competence, mediocrity becomes official policy. When leaders preach sacrifice while living in comfort, citizens hear the real message.
Pastor Ashimolowo compared Nigeria with America and said America has built a system bigger than the president. True. But America did not build that system by praising presidential intentions. It was built it through strong courts, strong institutions, public pressure, media scrutiny, legislative oversight, and consequences.
Here, a poor man can be arrested quickly for stealing a phone. A powerful man accused of stealing billions may receive visitors, prayers, medical permission, political protection, and eventually a new title. Then we wonder why the system is not working.
So when people say the president means well, ordinary Nigerians will ask: how do we measure intention?
By speeches, or by outcomes?
By appointment or by competence?
By the cost of governance?
By transparent contracts?
By consequences for powerful people?
By relief in daily life?
We not need another long explanation of why the system failed. We live inside that failure every day. We buy fuel inside it. We pay school fees inside it. We drive through it. We pray through it. Sometimes we laugh at it because shouting all the time is bad for blood pressure.
What we need now is proof of repair.
Not slogans. Not comfort talk. Not “he means well.”
Proof.
The broken system did not fall from heaven. People built it, people maintain it, and people profit from it. The real test is whether those in power are ready to repair it, even when the repair work reaches their own friends, allies and political family.
And that applies to all of us. Everyone.
That’s what I think sha!
@Aderemi Ogunpitan
