₦airaland Forum

The key identifier of an "elite" class is not merely their bank account balance but their ability and willingness to use their economic and political heft to shape the society around them.

That's why a hereditary landowner and member of the UK House of Lords is considered an elite, while your average Premier League footballer (who may have more money than the HoL member) is not. The difference is in the willingness and ability to wield that power meaningfully.

The reason I keep on saying 'Nigeria has no elites' is that I was born and raised among the subset of Nigerians who erroneously consider themselves to be elite, and I am very familiar with their thought process. It is the exact same thought process that you would get from a sugarcane seller in Mile 12 market if overnight he was given a house in Maitama, a Lexus SUV, a beautiful yarinya and N150m in the bank.

The nouveau-riche sugarcane seller would not be concerned with higher thoughts like how to use his newfound fortune to transform the economic reality of Mile 12 market while positioning to benefit from the transformation. Nope. He would only be concerned with ensuring that he keeps hold of what he has, so that he never has to sleep in a wheelbarrow on a side street off Ikosi Road again.

That's exactly what the privileged Nigerian is upstairs - a sugarcane seller who happens to live in Ikoyi. No matter how many decades they have spent in Ikoyi, their reality is still defined by the desperate quest to escape or avoid poverty. Every Nigerian millionaire or billionaire that you know feels financially insecure. Doesn't matter whether they are worth $1m or $25bn - they are all viscerally terrified of sinking into poverty, and the sum of their decision making is a series of short term deals and compromises to avoid poverty, without any kind of higher, long-term guiding principle.

I know this especially well because I was raised in a house where everybody who is somebody in Lagos stopped by once in a while to work on a real estate deal with my old man, and I would regularly overhear everybody from bank CEOs to retired military generals and air vice marshalls saying things "Our leaders are [insert whiny complaint]." And I would wonder - who are the "leaders" that these extremely privileged people sound so oppressed and intimidated by? Is it not their friends and coursemates from Jaji?

Later on it made sense when I realised that once you are in power in Nigeria, you become God, and even your family changes its rules for you. I've seen families override their olori-ebi because one 50 year-old uncle became somebody in Abuja. Conversely, as soon as you leave power in Nigeria, you sink into total irrelevance and people treat you like your body has a smell. The entire Nigerian sense of value and self-worth is welded to money and power. Once you don't have these 2 things, you might as well be wearing Harry Potter's invisibility cloak - even your family and contemporaries stop treating you with respect.

The effect this has on elite formation is that unlike in other societies where elites gravitate toward different ideas shared by different camps, and then fight for the right to imprint those ideas on their society (Democrat vs Republican; Maoist vs Dengist; Tory vs Labour etc), privileged Nigerians ONLY gravitate toward one thing - economic power. They have no elite sense of identity outside of money in the bank, a 4-wheeled status signaller on the road, and an overpriced house in a neighbourhood that has a constant bad odour and potholes.

That is also why Nigeria's political actors do this thing called "decamping" where they switch affiliation to whatever political party is in power. Their entire conception of the world is built around access to the levers of economic power so that they can avoid ending up in a wheelbarrow in Mile 12 market.

That's literally all there is to Nigeria.

200 million sugarcane sellers.

simonlee:
https://tvplatinum.ng/pdp-blames-kaduna-governor-for-tertiary-institutions-strike/

Iran is finished. I thought by now we will be discussing more important developments. As for Iran, It is history.

God1000:
The big brothers are coming to help them



This is like arab-Israeli war of 1948, US, Israel, Germany, UK are now ganging up against Iran


Iran is truly a powerful country

The end is near for the Ayotalla or whatever his name is.

Botragelad:
Source:
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-858440

The VP has been used. He is about to be flushed down the toilet!

fergie001:
https://newtelegraphng.com/2027-discussion-on-tinubu-running-mate-not-on-board-apc-secretary/?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=2027-discussion-on-tinubu-running-mate-not-on-board-apc-secretary

if you criticise someone keeping his compound clean then you must be a very dirty person.

Truths9ja:
Check out the billionaire fence where the cleaners wash every day in Awka in Anambra State

Na every month this cleaners do wash the fence in Awka in Anambra State. This is pure slavery. But some are saying money na water.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ulsdIQLI_o?

The seeds they are sowing in Rivers will certainly come back to hunt us all

robosky02:
https://dailypost.ng/2025/06/20/tinubu-accused-of-handing-rivers-political-structure-to-wike-for-2027-agenda/

Those who see criticisms, in a so-called democracy as bad, and view those who are critical of the government as "sore losers" only display ignorance and are sore winners

seunmsg:
Is there anything President Tinubu can do that would satisfy Atiku and Peter Obi? Is the aim of Mr. President’s visit to Benue to empathize with the people or to satisfy haters and sore losers like Atiku and Peter Obi?

Like they say, you can’t wake a man who is pretending to be sleeping. Those who have vowed never to see the good in you will anyways find fault in everything you do. It’s better to keep ignoring them.

Following in the footsteps of his CNC.
quote author=Peterobiisathie post=135815998]

https://punchng.com/nigerian-arrested-with-n214m-drug-in-india/?amp[/quote]

Criminals masquerading as men of God. Only those that want to be deceived get deceived!
quote author=aminauiade post=135813342]
https://tribuneonlineng.com/adefarasin-brandishing-stun-guns-to-threaten-is-a-crime-lagos-cp/amp/[/quote]

Continue to enjoy the dividends of your vote.

Pastorjohn2:
My love for tinubu is undenying, I prayed and fasted for 3 days before I voted for him as God told me he will make Nigeria great.
Come the next election, I'll vote him again.

Quite right. The power of Stvpid people brought APC back to power after eight years of clueless leadership under Buhari. Really, that is the downside of democracy. When you have a majority of ignorant people bringing to power the most incompetent leadership ever.

Maxymilliano:
Going by the current reality, re-electimg Tinubu should be an impossibility but never say never, this is Nigeria.

And as they say, never underestimate the power of stvpid people in large groups ...

The world is gradually marching towards a 3rd World War. Students of history will know this. The current global tensions will climax into a major international conflagration before 2050.

God1000:
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-858329?

The world is gradually edging towards a 3rd World War. Students of history will know this. The current global tensions will climax into a major international conflagration before 2050.

ManirBK:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/19/iran-launches-missile-attacks-as-israel-strikes-nuclear-sites