A senior fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of Premium Times newspaper, Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, has said Nigeria is undergoing a profound cultural decline that has reshaped its politics, religion and social values.
Speaking with ARISE NEWS on Monday about his essay; , A Culture of Dread: Nigeria’s Post-Cosmopolitanism, Professor Ibrahim, who is also a political scientist and development expert, argued that Nigeria’s political class is a product of a wider culture in which the pursuit of wealth has eclipsed morality, producing what he described as “a culture of theft, corruption and immorality.”
“Money and accumulation became the new deity in this country. Then you have a political class that is of a very dubious culture—a culture of theft, corruption, and immorality—versus a rising young generation with the same character, except one group does it officially through formal institutions, and the other does it through their control of arms. That’s the cultural dynamic in contemporary Nigeria,” he said.
Lamenting what he described as the erosion of Nigeria’s cultural values, Professor Ibrahim argued that poverty alone could not explain the country’s moral decline, insisting that the pursuit of wealth had displaced moral and spiritual values, while religion had increasingly become “an arena of accumulation” used to acquire wealth and social acceptance rather than reflect genuine faith.
“This is a society in which annual surveys show over 99% of people believe in God. And yet, people will enter a building dedicated to the worship of God, see people worshipping, and massacre them. Everybody is thinking of what they will get today—the money they will make. Money has become the god. I’m not talking about what people say; most Nigerians will tell you they are religious. But you must look at people’s actions. Culture is about what people do, not what they say. If everything you do opposes the content of your religion, then you are just deceiving yourself.
“The fundamental issue about religion in this country is that religion itself has become an arena of accumulation. Religion in this country produces a lot of wealth. People who seek access to wealth, who have great communication skills, and who are great orators—which is the best profession for them? The religious profession! My point really is that religion becomes something you use to gain acceptability, but it’s not about what you are actually interested in doing, or what your genuine objectives are,” he lamented.
Turning to the political class, Professor Ibrahim said Nigeria’s governance crisis is rooted in a broader cultural decline, adding that many of the country’s most competent and principled citizens are increasingly excluded from politics as the quality of leadership continues to deteriorate.
“When you think about it, a lot of politicians—when those who know them talk—have stories that are very much about being the worst in society. What is happening to this country is that the best, most competent, most programmatic, and most honest people cannot go into politics anymore because it’s too dirty. They are increasingly being marginalized because they cannot play the game as it is played today. That is why we have the political dregs of society rising up and controlling the levers of power.”
Despite his bleak assessment, Professor Ibrahim said Nigeria can still reverse its decline if more honest and public-spirited citizens participate in politics, urging Nigerians with integrity and a commitment to the public good to step into leadership and help reshape the country’s future.
“I think there is one pathway to a positive future. I believe the majority of Nigerians are honest, God-fearing people, but they are withdrawing from the political arena. We need to convince Nigerians who have programs, purpose in their lives, and who believe above all in the public good to come out, take the insults, and enter the race. With the support of ordinary Nigerians, we can start displacing the current political class that sends such a terrible message for Nigeria’s future,” he maintained.
Commenting on the public exchange between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Professor Ibrahim said truth has become secondary in Nigerian politics, where competing narratives are often shaped by political advantage rather than facts. He maintained that Nigerians should judge political leaders by their record, character, competence and capacity, rather than by conflicting accounts of past political disputes.
“In our politics, truth is the farthest thing from practice, simply because our politics has been centered around the construction of narratives. When they construct a narrative, the only determining factor is: what gives me an advantage? There is, therefore, no reflection on the content of that narrative, its truthfulness, or even its relevance. How relevant is it today that Obasanjo and Atiku are fighting about when they were ruling this country together? It’s very important for history, but that doesn’t determine our movement forward in this country.
“I think it’s relevant in that context, but the relevance isn’t whether there is an exchange between these two people. The assessment Nigerians make of Atiku should be as someone who has exercised power in government, who has been in politics for a long time, and who has sought political power for a long time. The assessment should be over his career, his character, his competence, and his skills. That’s what I’d want to hear, not responses to allegations about things that happened behind closed doors—with people now re-molding these narratives to fit contemporary political cleavages and contests,” he said.
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