The 25 September 1995 edition of The New Yorker carried a damning assertion by Colin Powell, the American diplomat and future Secretary of State. “They just tend not to be honest. Nigerians as a group, frankly, are marvelous scammers. I mean, it is in their national culture,” Powell said, igniting widespread outrage. Human rights activist Femi Falana rebuked him in The Washington Post, stating, “You should never make sweeping generalisations like that to describe a people. Those comments are very unbecoming of a man of his stature.”
Another Diplomatic Indignity
Years later, in May 2016, British Prime Minister David Cameron was overheard telling Queen Elizabeth II during her 90th birthday celebration: “We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain… Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.” BBC Diplomatic Correspondent James Landale used litotes to critique the remark, noting, “On the face of it, it is perhaps one of the most undiplomatic things a prime minister could say… but they were not untrue.” Transparency International’s 2015 Corruption Perception Index confirmed the assessment: Nigeria ranked 136th, Afghanistan 167th, just ahead of Somalia and North Korea.
The Agẹmọ Curse and National Retardation
Drawing on Yoruba mythology, the article compares Nigeria’s plight to a child who pelts the sacred Agẹmọ (chameleon) with a stone—resulting not in immediate death but a slow fading into nothingness. “Methinks Nigeria has stoned the Agẹmọ and the outcome is this national retardation,” writes journalist Festus Adedayo. He argues that the country’s political class is rapacious, the society morally deficient, and the future hanging by a cliff.
Flawed Foundation: The Substructure-Superstructure Problem
Adedayo invokes Karl Marx’s theory of substructure and superstructure, applying it to Nigeria. Political scientist Femi Otubanjo warned that after the 2027 elections, regardless of who wins, the nation will return to sorrow. “Bad leaders, endemic corruption, election riggers, an uncritical electorate, and a rapacious National Assembly… all constitute Nigeria’s flawed substructure,” Adedayo writes. He cites the “colonial blueprint theory,” noting Northern Premier Ahmadu Bello’s reflection: “God did not create Nigeria; the British did.”
Leadership and the Rogue Elite
Chinua Achebe, in The Trouble With Nigeria, blamed leadership failure. But others point to a tainted electorate. Senator Nuhu Aliyu confessed in April 2005 that colleagues in the National Assembly included individuals he had previously arrested. Today, known fraudsters are addressed as “Excellencies.” Adedayo quotes theologian Ogbu Kalu, who described Nigeria’s political culture as “a virus, feeding on the red blood corpuscles of the primal world.”
The Abacha Death Controversy
Retired DSS officer Dennis Amachree, in his book DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, claims former military dictator Sani Abacha died from cardiac arrest during an intimate encounter with a paramour on 8 June 1998, not from a poisoned handshake as earlier rumored. Amachree’s account gained credibility through the passage of time—Abacha died 28 years ago—and the declassification of records. However, Tony Eluemunor challenged the narrative, noting Abacha was severely ill with diabetes and cirrhosis, and that two foreign women were present. Adedayo advocates for full transparency: “Nigerian leaders ought to be exempt from religious boundaries… the full, unvarnished facts surrounding their final days should belong strictly to the public record.”
