Malami, Farouk, and the Chichidodo Question Nigeria Refuses to Answer
Editor’s note: In this article, UK-based columnist Folorunso Fatai Adisa looks at claims linking Abubakar Malami and Farouk Ahmed to unexplained wealth, and what defending such figures means for justice, public resources, and everyday Nigerians.
You say you despise stealing. You condemn fraud and curse corruption. But the moment a politically exposed individual is indicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, you cry witch-hunt. You insist he is being persecuted. You invoke tribe, religion, or party. You may not steal with your hands, but when you defend a thief with your voice, you participate in the crime. You become what Ayi Kwei Armah called a chichidodo.
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In The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Armah offers one of the sharpest moral metaphors in African literature. The chichidodo, he writes, hates excrement with all its soul, yet feeds only on maggots, which thrive best in filth. It despises corruption but survives on its proceeds. That contradiction is its tragedy. It is also ours. The spread of chichidodos has made accountability in Nigeria painfully difficult. Alleged looters are shielded not by evidence of innocence but by ethnic sentiment, religious loyalty, and partisan allegiance. Justice is stalled not because facts are absent, but because conscience has been outsourced to identity.
Mark Twain captured this moral boundary succinctly when he observed that patriotism means supporting your country all the time, and your government only when it deserves it. He did not advocate blind loyalty. Defending public plunderers is not patriotism. It is parasitism. To praise looters is to feed off the decay they create. That is chichidodo logic.
According to TheCable, the EFCC has traced 41 properties allegedly worth about ₦212 billion to Abubakar Malami, former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. The report states that these assets, hotels, residential buildings, land, schools, and a printing press, are spread across Kebbi State, Kano State, and the Federal Capital Territory. The figures cited are staggering: over ₦162 billion in Kebbi, about ₦16 billion in Kano, and nearly ₦35 billion in the FCT.
These sums are not abstract. They represent hospitals not built, roads not repaired, classrooms not equipped, and lives diminished by neglect. Political economist Susan Rose-Ackerman, one of the world’s leading scholars on corruption, has long argued that corruption is not only a moral failing but a systemic tax on development, diverting public resources from productive use and eroding trust in institutions. Where corruption becomes normalised, she notes, inequality deepens, and state capacity collapses.
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Earlier this month, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, publicly alleged that a senior government official had sent four children to a Swiss secondary school at a reported cost of $5 million. The official he mentioned was Engr. Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority. These claims remain allegations, but they raise unavoidable questions. What lawful income sustains such expenditure? What private enterprise supports such opulence? Or are public resources being quietly converted into private luxury?
These are not questions of envy but of arithmetic. Lavish spending on this scale cannot be reconciled with modest public-sector earnings. Economist Amartya Sen has consistently argued that development is not measured by elite consumption but by the expansion of collective capabilities. When public wealth is siphoned into private excess, the freedoms of the many are sacrificed for the comfort of the few.
Sadly, the most disheartening sight is not the allegations themselves but the reaction they provoke. Struggling Nigerians rush to defend those under investigation. Poverty argues on behalf of privilege. Hunger becomes a shield for power. This is the mob mentality Aesop warned about in The Frogs and the Sun, where short-term excitement blinds people to long-term ruin.
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Corruption in Nigeria is not confined to politicians alone. It seeps through institutions. Civil servants, regulators, and gatekeepers often form the hidden machinery that sustains the rot. As the World Bank has repeatedly observed, corruption thrives where accountability mechanisms are weak and where social tolerance allows abuse of office to go unpunished.
If you wish to be an honoured guest in the house of equity, you cannot arrive as a chichidodo. Justice admits only those who come with clean hands, clean garments, and clean intentions. Around the world, nations that treat grand corruption lightly eventually pay heavily in instability, insecurity, and social collapse.
Nigeria need not imitate extreme punitive models to confront corruption, but it must rediscover seriousness. Without firm and consistent accountability, the damage ahead will eclipse what we already endure. A society that habitually defends looters is not just corrupt; it is complicit. While countries like China impose the harshest penalties for grand corruption, Nigeria need only enforce asset forfeiture, restitution, and lifelong disqualification from public office. Looters should not stroll freely through our streets enjoying stolen comfort; they should lose both the funds and the fun that corruption affords.
Folorunso Fatai Adisa is a communication strategist and columnist. He holds a Master’s degree in Media and Communication from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and writes from the United Kingdom. He can be contacted via folorunsofatai03@gmail.com
Source: Legit.ng
