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Nigeria’s Indefatigable Corruption: The Abiku That Will Not Die

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In Yoruba cosmology, the Abiku is the spirit-child who dies and returns, repeatedly, defying parental grief and communal rituals meant to banish it. Wole Soyinka and John Pepper Clark, in their celebrated poems, gave voice to this haunting cycle.

Soyinka’s Abiku speaks with defiance:

“In vain your bangles cast

Charmed circles at my feet;

I am Abiku, calling for the first

And repeated time.”

 

Clark’s Abiku echoes the inevitability:

“Coming and going these several seasons,

Do stay out on the baobab tree,

Follow where you please your kindred spirits.” 

Nigeria’s corruption is our national Abiku. It dies in commissions of inquiry, only to be reborn in new scandals. It is buried in anti-graft campaigns, only to rise again in fresh looting. Like the spirit-child, corruption mocks our rituals of reform, returning with the same stubborn laughter.

Soyinka’s Defiant Abiku and Nigeria’s Defiant Corruption

Soyinka’s Abiku is unapologetic, almost proud of its return. It taunts the living with inevitability. Nigeria’s corruption behaves the same way. Each time we think we have subdued it, through EFCC raids, judicial panels, or “war against indiscipline. It reappears, brazen, unashamed, as if to say: “In vain your bangles cast charmed circles at my feet.”

The analogy is chilling: corruption in Nigeria is not embarrassed by exposure. It thrives on it. Headlines of scandal are not deterrents but invitations to the next cycle.

Clark’s Resigned Abiku and Nigeria’s Resigned Citizenry

Clark’s Abiku is less defiant, wearier, acknowledging its endless cycle of coming and going. Nigerians, too, have grown weary. Citizens watch corruption return season after season, administration after administration, until resignation sets in. The people, like Clark’s grieving parents, plead for the spirit-child to stay away, but deep down they know it will return.

This resignation breeds cynicism: “Nothing will change.” It is the quiet acceptance that corruption is part of the Nigerian rhythm, as natural as the rainy season.

Inferences: The Abiku as National Metaphor

  • Indefatigability: Just as the Abiku cannot be banished, corruption resists eradication. It adapts, mutates, and reappears.
  • Communal grief: Families mourn the Abiku’s cycle; Nigerians mourn corruption’s cycle. Both griefs are collective, both are exhausting.
  • Mockery of rituals: Traditional charms fail against the Abiku; anti-corruption agencies fail against entrenched graft. The rituals are elaborate, but the spirit-child laughs.
  • Generational haunting: The Abiku haunts families across generations; corruption haunts Nigeria across administrations.

Anecdote: The Commission That Became a Ghost

Consider the countless commissions of inquiry into oil revenue mismanagement. Each one promises to exorcise corruption. Reports are written, recommendations made, but nothing changes. The commission itself becomes a ghost, like the Abiku, haunting the archives but never altering reality.

Conclusion

Soyinka’s Abiku is defiant, Clark’s Abiku is resigned. Nigeria’s corruption is both. It mocks our efforts to banish it, yet it also induces resignation among the citizenries. To call our corruption indefatigable like the Abiku is to acknowledge its cyclical nature, its haunting persistence, and its refusal to die.

But unlike the mythical child, corruption is not a spirit; it is human-made, sustained by greed and impunity. To break the cycle, Nigeria must stop treating corruption as inevitable fate and start treating it as deliberate choice. Otherwise, our democracy will remain forever haunted, forever mourning, forever waiting for the child that never stays.


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Anonymous said…


Summary

The article emphasizes that—unlike the mythical Abiku or Ogbanje, who returns through spiritual forces—corruption in Nigeria is not supernatural or predestined. It is human-made, driven by greed, impunity, and the repeated failure of institutions meant to check abuse of power. Using the Abiku metaphor, the article explains how corruption behaves like a spirit-child that continually returns, mocking every attempt to stop it. Commissions of inquiry, anti-graft agencies, and government reforms become ritual performances that look powerful but ultimately cannot bind the destructive cycle.

This cyclical failure creates a dangerous national mindset: a collective grief that turns into cynicism. Many Nigerians begin to see corruption as normal—predictable as the rainy season—leading to resignation instead of resistance. The metaphor warns that if corruption continues to be treated as an inevitable curse, Nigeria will remain trapped in a future that repeats its broken past.

The article concludes that the Abiku story should inspire action, not fatalism. Corruption is not destiny; it can be defeated through accountability and collective refusal to accept the cycle. Only by rejecting the idea that corruption is an unchangeable fate can Nigeria break free from being a nation forever haunted, forever mourning, and forever waiting for promised change that never stays.

— Ogbuke’s Cubicles’s Den, Borderline Ontario
December 10, 2025 at 9:48 AM
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