In the fevered rhythm of election seasons, desperation often masquerades as ambition. It comes cloaked in expensive agbadas, riding in convoys, waving at cheering crowds. But beneath the show lies a dangerous intention—to seize power not to serve but to recover vast amounts already spent in pursuit of the throne.
In Anambra State, this creeping desperation is no longer subtle. It’s loud, confident, and dangerously normalized.
The cost of securing a political party’s ticket alone has skyrocketed into billions. Aspirants dish out staggering sums to delegates, lavish voters with temporary gratification, and grease every willing palm along the way. But elections, like life, offer no freebies. For every naira spent to secure the will of the people through dubious means, there’s an invisible IOU written against the treasury of the state. Those who buy power see governance as a business transaction. And once sworn in, their first duty is not to the masses but to their debtors and their own deep pockets.
This culture of political investment has a ripple effect that the common man feels first and hardest. Roads that should have been repaired remain in disrepair. Health centres continue to decay without drugs or qualified personnel. Schools in rural communities suffer from a lack of teachers and facilities. The youth, full of potential and ambition, are left to roam the streets without jobs or skills, watching as politicians secure contracts for their cronies and build empires for themselves.
When desperation drives the quest for power, public institutions are the first casualties. Agencies are no longer independent; instead, they become instruments of reward or vengeance. Merit disappears. Appointments are given not based on capacity or character but on loyalty and past favours. The civil service becomes bloated with redundancies, and budgets are padded with ghost projects meant to serve as conduits for recovery. What should be a season of development becomes a season of looting masked with empty media celebrations.
And while the looting continues, the same people who once danced at campaign grounds begin to groan. The market woman wonders why her children’s school still leaks when it rains. The fisherman sees his only access road swallowed by erosion, year after year. The pregnant woman loses her baby on a bumpy ride to a hospital that lacks even a working generator. These are not distant tales; they are the lived realities of people whose only crime was voting for desperation.
The danger becomes even more acute when these desperate leaders, blinded by their need to recoup, surround themselves with praise singers and sycophants. They avoid criticism like a plague and shun voices that speak truth to power. Town hall meetings are replaced with choreographed rallies. State resources are spent more on image laundering than on people-centred policies. What begins as a personal journey of recovery morphs into a full-scale sabotage of the state’s progress.
Anambra, with all its promise and potential, cannot afford to be led by men and women whose only qualification is how much they spent to get to the top. It is time we asked the right questions: Where did the campaign billions come from? What private deals have been struck behind closed doors? And most importantly, who will pay the price?
Because history shows us clearly—whenever desperate people govern, the citizens always end up footing the bill. In lost years. In broken infrastructure. In stunted dreams. And in silent tears shed far from the cameras that once captured the dancing and the drumming.
Now more than ever, Anambra must rise with clarity. We must refuse to hand over our future to those who have mortgaged their conscience for power. We must choose vision over vanity, accountability over affluence, and character over currency. Our state is not for sale. And our silence should never be part of the transaction.
