Enugu 2027: Living In Bondage With Smiles, by Mon-Charles Egbo

Writing on Slaves That Love Their Chains Will Remain Long in Bondage, Musa Bakare noted that “there is a tragic truth that echoes through history,  politics, and human behaviour: no oppression endures more deeply than the one that people willingly submit to. A slave who loves his chains, who defends them, excuses them, rationalizes them, or fears life without them will remain in bondage far longer. Bondage is not sustained by the strength of the oppressor alone; it is sustained by the obedience, silence, and psychological surrender of the oppressed.”

Better described as the paradox of the oppressed, this mirrors a scenario where the prisoner defends the prison house, the hungry justify the famine, and the heavily taxed sing festive praises for the hand holding the financial whip.

It represents the pathetic story of Enugu State where an average resident, particularly the vast majority in the hinterlands, is progressively impoverished under the guise of modernization, in addition to struggling daily with aggressive taxation, a rising cost of living, and poor infrastructure, while those close to the corridors of power, including political appointees and sub-contractors, have become the loudest cheerleaders of an underperforming government.

Intentionally, and by deploying the art of “stomach infrastructure,” the state government has created an environment where the private sector is weak and independent economic survival is exceptionally difficult; the governor is effectively the primary employer, the chief distributor of resources, and the sole arbiter of financial security.

In this new order of monopolized economic opportunities, political appointments are no longer sacred calls to public service; rather, they are desperately weaponized as survival lifeboats.

Hence, the price of entry into Enugu’s elite circle is the loud, uncritical, and public adulation of the governor. To secure a political appointment, including community leadership or even a minor subcontract, an individual must completely surrender their critical independence. This has created a rampaging band of political appointees and hangers-on, including rehabilitated torn-coats, who demonstrate that their daily bread depends entirely on their ability to drown out the cries of the suffering populace.

Indeed, there is no better way to lose freedom, because trading fundamental human dignity for three meals a day is a symptom of a broken economic safety net, not a true benefit.

A walk through the streets and markets instantly presents the quiet, desperate lamentations of the everyday citizen: the Keke riders, minibus drivers, and small-scale petty traders whose daily margins are being ruthlessly eroded by an unprecedented, aggressive fiscal onslaught in the name of revenue generation.

To further underscore the prevailing shortage of empathy in governance, this is occurring at a critical time of punishing inflation, skyrocketing fuel prices, and a severely weakened currency.

Yet, the internet and local airwaves are flooded with a deafening, lavish chorus from the priviledged few beneficiaries and favour-seeking outriders who continuously hail the administration’s “unprecedented vision”.

Typical of media terrorists, this relentless army of self-styled social influencers, aides, and digital mercenaries is deployed to rewrite the daily reality of the state.

They manufacture the illusion of widespread public satisfaction and mindlessly attack the perceived dissenting voices. They celebrate the process rather than the outcome and suppress opposing views.

Is it not common knowledge that even the noblest of intentions become valuable only when translated into reality, and communication is incomplete until there is feedback? Are three years not enough for citizens to begin to see the socioeconomic dividends of accumulated revenues and elite structures? How many smart schools and hospitals are really functional?

Sadly, these enslaved cheerleaders have not only accommodated their chains; they have learned to love them, to polish them, and to demand that everyone else admire their shine. They are now afraid of a life or a tomorrow without their captors. They have exchanged their authority for the crumbs from the oppressor’s table. Evidently, their love for the weighty and stiff chains is not profound and unbeatable.

If concerned citizens complain about hyper-taxation or structural neglect in rural communities, these radicalized captives dismiss the legitimate complaints of economic hardship as the bitter grumblings of an unpatriotic opposition.

They promote the literal narrative that: “if you want development, then you must be willing to bleed financially for it.”

A trader who laments that aggressive taxes have swallowed her entire monthly profit is no longer seen as a victim of bad policy; she is branded as an illiterate, backward saboteur who stands in the way of Enugu’s transition into a modern, digital smart city.

No doubt, the IGR has risen, commendably, but the real issue is how it affects small business owners, traders, and ordinary citizens. By every standard of assessment, the accumulating revenues merely serve grandstanding rather than being deployed to make life easier for the masses.

The gap between revenue collected and visible, grassroots development projects or poverty alleviation reflects the government’s true character.

A well-meaning government knows that tax is meant to serve the people, and responsive governance means deliberately putting people first by using power fairly and managing resources effectively. Rather than upgrading basic education infrastructure, the healthcare system, and rural transportation, the governor is pursuing duplicative projects he cannot deliver within his tenure. Is this not organized wastage?

Because the people have been alienated and impoverished to the point where political patronage is literally the only means of survival, poverty is now weaponized in Enugu State.

People must praise the government to secure their next meal or political appointment. Captives now cherish and celebrate their oppressors. Supposed benefactors now reduce themselves to beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has blindfolded them to the point where character, capacity, and competence no longer determine leadership. It is now about nepotism and how to “maintain the existing principle of power rotation among the three senatorial zones”.

Understandably, in a system where state machinery keeps critics quiet while rewarding vocal compliance, fear of victimization is the reason several voices are lost today.

Citizens feel they must flatter the leadership to access basic rights or crumbs of patronage, thereby seeing their oppressor as their ultimate benefactor.

Pretentious beneficiaries who can barely feed their families today actively defend the state’s aggressive policies. They take false pride in pointing to shiny structures or a list of elite facilities conceived for optics alone. They have fallen deeply, tragically in love with the chains that bind them, so blind to the fact that they have been financially castrated to pay for projects they will never have the economic leverage to enjoy.

Meanwhile, violence is equally weaponized. The unwritten rule now is: criticize the government at your own peril!

Recent incidents of violent disruptions of opposition political gatherings and attacks on identified critics across the state, including indiscriminate suspension of traditional rulers, reveal more of the story. By aggressively closing democratic space and intimidating dissenting voices, the administration is desperately working to ensure that the only sound echoing in the public square is the organized applause of its own praise-singers.

Apart from ‘buying’ the elite who ought to know, the governor works desperately to see that a significant portion of the ordinary populace is gradually being conditioned to internalize and validate their own oppression, thereby causing the oppressed to view their exploitation not just as natural, but as beneficial.

This is apparent in the seemingly conspiracy-theory dimension, where the silent majority is culpable.

Despite presenting the tax policy as a clean, digital panacea to eradicate revenue wastage, the actual implementation has left small businesses, artisans, and commercial transporters mercilessly impoverished. In other words, the much-touted “tax miracle” is a hollow victory because it has left the streets broken, hungry, and, particularly, tearfully terrified of its own tax collectors.

When a government exponentially increases revenue extraction while ordinary citizens struggle to afford a single meal, it stops being progressive taxation. It becomes state-sanctioned economic predation.

But can’t this cycle of engineered dependency be broken?

To throw away the chains of those living bondage with smiles, the silent majority of Enugu State must embrace civic awakening. They should unite in resilience to ask: If the economic reality of the ordinary citizen is one of widespread hardship, why does a segment of the public sphere feel so overwhelmingly supportive of the status quo?

Concerned citizens must systematically refuse to be further seduced by cosmetic governance that masks the harsh, material realities of their daily lives to attract external applause.

True sycophancy cannot thrive if a credible, alternative voice is allowed to speak freely in the public square. Again, true, sustainable development is never measured by the geometric growth in the IGR or the volume of sycophantic applause generated by political appointees living in bondage with smiles. It is measured by the tangible, qualitative well-being of society’s most vulnerable citizens.

The governor and his cheerleaders, living in bondage with smiles, and enjoying the temporary crumbs of political patronage, should be reminded that an economy drained of informal purchasing power will eventually collapse inward, taking both master and servant down with it.

When a government values revenue targets over human capital, and cosmetic urban aesthetics over the basic survival of its people, it builds a glittering castle on a foundation of quicksand. Time only makes the difference!

Once again, are three years not enough for the true dividends of the huge investments to manifest? Also, “bondage is not sustained by the strength of the oppressor alone; it is sustained by the obedience, silence, and psychological surrender of the oppressed.”

Egbo is a parliamentary affairs analyst.