Is Nigeria A Graveyard For Failed Leaders?

Is Nigeria A Graveyard For Failed Leaders?

Nigeria finds itself trapped in a vicious and embarrassing cycle: our leaders live in luxury, rule with impunity, fly abroad for medical care, and when they die, they are flown back in golden coffins to be mourned by the very people they neglected. This colonial hangover of seeking validation and healing from the West must stop.

Let us speak plainly: this is not just about where a leader dies, but how they lived, and how they failed those who trusted them. Human rights violations, state-backed massacres, dilapidated hospitals, and collapsed infrastructure define their legacies. How can a people be expected to mourn leaders who never respected the living, but demanded reverence in death?

Recall the 2020 EndSARS protests, where young Nigerians were killed for demanding basic dignity. Recall when Nigerians had to buy Naira with Naira under an inhumane policy.

Recall the astronomical cost of foreign medical trips, like a hospital in London charging £5,000 per day, while Nigeria’s hospitals lack beds, power, or even gloves.

The constitutional reform underway should include a bold clause: Any public official who dies while receiving medical treatment abroad should be buried abroad. Let them rest where they trusted, not in the land they abandoned. Nigeria is not a graveyard for failed leaders.

In the early years post-independence, Nigeria boasted strong hospitals: University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan, built in the 1950s, was once among the top in the Commonwealth. But over the decades, greed, neglect, and corruption eroded our health systems. Why? Because those in power never intended to use them.

No European president flies to Africa for treatment. Why should our leaders abandon us, only to return in death for empty rituals and national lies?

As the Bible says in Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked rule, the people groan.”

Nigeria is groaning. Enough is enough.

It is time to build functional hospitals, prioritize the living, and demand accountability from the leaders, both alive and dead.

NoMoreStateFuneralsForNeglect

BuildOurHospitals

AfricaIsNotAGraveyard

AccountabilityInLifeNotDeath

DignityForTheLiving

StopForeignMedicalWaste

WeDeserveBetter