“The Masks They Wear”: Shilgba Slams Nigerian Politicians for Perpetuating a Cycle of Deception

In a searing opinion piece, academic and public commentator Leonard Karshima Shilgba has called out Nigerian politicians for manipulating the electorate with recycled lies, failed leadership, and identity politics warning that if citizens don’t break the cycle, they are not just victims, but accomplices.

“The Masks They Wear: How Nigerian Politicians Deceive a Nation on Repeat,” Leonard Shilgba’s essay delivers a powerful critique of Nigeria’s political elite, accusing them of recycling failed leadership every election cycle under new slogans. He argues that widespread public amnesia and desperation for change continue to empower these politicians, fueling a never-ending cycle of deception.

Shilgba argues that Nigeria’s democracy has been reduced to a “ritualized deception,” where politicians market incompetence as experience and prey on the public’s fatigue. “They reinvent failure, market it as experience, and prey on a people battered into forgetfulness,” he wrote.

According to Shilgba, Nigeria’s political system is built on impunity. He cites examples of former governors and public officials who looted state funds but were later elected into federal positions without accountability. “Power is not service; it is spoils. Elections are not choices; they are auctions,” he declared.

He pointed out that tribal loyalty and religious affiliations often take precedence over integrity and performance in Nigeria’s political landscape. “We treat memory like garbage… and every thief is accepted as long as he is ‘our thief’,” Shilgba lamented.

“A politician who has failed in office has no business asking for a second chance without confession and restitution,” Shilgba warned.

“Let the next election not be a coronation of the shameless, but a revolution of the awake.”

He also emphasized: “If we do not rise to break the cycle, we are not just victims—we are accomplices.”

Shilgba urged Nigerians to hold leaders accountable, demand measurable solutions to inflation, insecurity, and naira devaluation, and resist voting based on handouts and sentiment. He concluded with a call for national awakening: “The masks must fall. The music must change.”