The Banquet of Vultures: How Greed is Consuming Nigeria's Soul

Nigeria’s major problem is beyond leadership as we also have a citizen malady — gross pathological greed.

That is why I can boldly assert that there’s a terrible feast happening in Nigeria, and we are all invited—not as guests, but as the main course. The banquet hall is our national treasury, the table is set with stolen contracts and inflated budgets, and the diners are the powerful—business moguls, petroleum marketers, telecom giants, bankers, INEC bosses, journalists and politicians—all gorging themselves while the rest of the nation starves. A school generates millions but pays its teachers wages fit for medieval serfs. Police officers and soldiers risk their lives for salaries that cannot buy a bag of rice, while those in power steal billions and millions of dollars meant to protect them. Senators pocket funds for roads that will never be built. Governors divert money for hospitals into private international businesses. The greed is not just immoral; it is apocalyptic. History and literature have always warned us about this kind of gluttony—it never ends well for the feasters.

What is the job of NCC? At my estate in Abuja we can't even browse the Internet or host an online hangout without constant disruption. Why can't MTN, Airtel be compelled to acquire infrastructure that would ensure good services as they offer in South Africa and India respectively? 

What's the job of the President, when bandits have sponsors that can't be arrested and charged to court for genocidal killings in Bokkos, Agatu, Ebonyi, Taraba? Why can't local security guards be armed with Peregreen Drone-acid attackers, German Shepherds, CCTV systems, Power Bikes, Helicopters, Pump Action, AK-47 to end insurgency? 

Governors and the President are planning and saving our resources for second tenure. Feasting on the blood of Nigerians. We do not have a leadership problem, but greed malady. A Head of Service stole over $1billion. This is plain lust for theft, not just money. Gold lust. Banks charge our people like never before. We are taxed to cross bridges in Lagos State. Customs charge so high like the government is insane.

The ancient Greeks told the story of King Midas, who wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. At first, it seemed like a blessing—until he embraced his daughter and she became a lifeless statue. His greed made him the richest man alive—and the loneliest. Nigeria’s elites are modern-day Midases, turning everything they touch into personal wealth—pension funds, school fees, COVID relief,  Customs duties, even money meant for feeding schoolchildren. But like Midas, they are creating a golden wasteland. The roads are death traps, the hospitals are mortuaries, and the schools produce graduates who cannot write their own names. No electricity as I pen this essay in agony. The tragedy is not just that they are stealing, but that they do not realize they are turning their own future into a prison of gold—a nation so broken that even their stolen billions will one day be worthless. They enjoy theft. No justifiable rationale for the theft of Yahaya Bello, Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo, and all former Presidents, governors, senators, INEC bosses and other officials of government, even those in MDAs and across the public services. Even Pastors and Imams are in the mindless rat-race.

I trained staff in the Ministry of Sports after creating a portal for their last tournament, they refused to make the payment in full. The officers ate the money boldly.

I trained staff of the Ministry of Trade in Kano and Lagos; they shared the money allotted for the training and left me with peanut. The wind of greed blows in every corner of Nigeria; even at my farm where security men stole our beans and maize after herdsmen took cattle to the farm. There is the hunger to be enriched over another’s blood and sweat. Citizens steal, just as leaders grab all they can in a murderous gluttony just like Macbeth. 

William Shakespeare’s work comes to mind at this juncture. Macbeth’s characterization depicts another kind of greed—the hunger for power. Macbeth murders his way to the throne, only to find that each crime demands another. "I am in blood stepped in so far," he says, "that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er." Nigeria’s leaders are wading in the same river. The more they steal, the more they must steal to cover their tracks—security votes become private jets, constituency allowances become mansions in London, and palliatives become secret bank accounts. But like Macbeth, they will discover too late that greed is not a ladder to power—it is a noose.

Yesterday, at my presentation in TCN, I maintained that the reason our power grid keeps getting vandalized is because of their corporate miserly choices: Senior civil servants all have CCTV at their unoccupied village mansions, but will never place alarms, IOT, CCTV across our power lines to enhance security and reduce vandalism. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol gives us the haunting image of Jacob Marley, a wealthy miser who returns as a ghost, dragging chains forged from his own greed. "I wear the chain I forged in life," he tells Scrooge. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard." Nigeria’s corrupt elite are forging their own chains—luxury apartments in Dubai, offshore accounts in Panama, vaults of cash buried in their villages making it impossible for Naira to rise. They do not realize that these are not treasures, but shackles. A nation where the rich steal from the poor is not a society—it is a graveyard.

The Bible warns, "The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). It does not say money itself is evil, but the obsession with it—the willingness to sell one’s soul for it. Nigeria’s problem is not poverty; it is the pathological greed of those who would rather see a nation burn than share a crumb. The Roman Empire fell not because of barbarians, but because its leaders looted the treasury until nothing was left. The French Revolution did not start because the poor were hungry, but because the aristocracy thought they could eat forever while others starved.

Nigeria stands at a crossroads. Will we continue to let vultures feast on our future, or will we rise and demand a country where prosperity is not hoarded but shared? The lesson from literature and history is clear: greed destroys the greedy. Midas lost his daughter. Macbeth lost his soul. Marley lost his eternity. Nigeria’s elites are on the same path. The only question is whether the rest of us will let them take the nation down with them.

The time to choose is now—before the banquet becomes a funeral.