Beneath the surface

Beneath the surface is where the real story lives. Headlines, viral clips, social chatter, and quarterly numbers show only the tip; underneath lie the forces that shape public life—motives, systems, identities, and the quiet routines of every day. Looking deeper is not mysticism; it is a practical method that links facts to understanding and understanding to action.

Two often-flattened examples make the point. Colonial history is more than a timeline; it is how borders, extractive logics, and “customary” categories were frozen into today’s institutions. Cultural identity is not a label; it is a living negotiation of dignity and belonging at home, in school, at work, and on the street. The responsible stance is empathy with discipline—holding complexity without drowning in it.

“When politics is expensive and powerful, it attracts coercion over ideas, drives experts away, depresses turnout, and shortens horizons.”

Going beneath appearances means asking four questions: Why? How? What if? And, crucially, what am I missing? These pull us from symptoms to causes and keep us humble about the limits of what we know. The “Iceberg of Ignorance” is a warning, not a rebuke: weak signals rarely reach the top, so leaders must build better listening systems and admit that most decisions are made with partial information.

Start with yourself. Seek honest feedback, especially from those who bear the cost of your choices. Watch the small behaviours that reveal true priorities. Tolerate discomfort—hidden flaws are rarely flattering. After major actions, ask why, how, and what if; run after-action reviews; and normalise constructive challenges so learning compounds.

Applied to Nigeria’s political economy, surface numbers for 2025 look hopeful—growth near 3.9 percent in the first half, healthy reserves above $42bn, and a current-account surplus around 6.1 percent of GDP, with projections inching toward 4.2 percent in 2025 and 4.4 percent by 2027. Yet daily life tells a harsher truth: food now costs roughly five times its 2019 level, forcing families to downgrade diets and stretch coping strategies.

Headline inflation eased to about 20 percent in August 2025, and interest rates are edging down, but the shock of 2023–24 still bites hardest where most income goes to food.

Corruption is not a few bad actors; it is a system. Nigeria’s 2024 CPI score of 26/100 (140th of 180) mirrors entrenched patterns—manipulated contracting, regulatory capture, and the tight bond between political finance and state resources. Unless we change who gets selected, how money moves, and how rules are enforced, the loop will replay.

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Politics is also priced to repel competence. In 2022, a major party charged ₦100 million for a presidential nomination form—an early filter that screens out credible professionals and rewards financiers expecting payback. When politics is expensive and powerful, it attracts coercion over ideas, drives experts away, depresses turnout, and shortens horizons.

Fixes are not mysterious. Lower entry barriers with strict spending caps, real-time public finance disclosures, and a hard ban on off-book delegate payments. Upgrade state capacity with pre-project diligence, public post-project reviews, promotions tied to delivered outcomes, and independent performance panels. Tackle food costs by unclogging borders, investing in storage and logistics, and pairing supply-side fixes with targeted, reliable social support. Re-engage citizens with simple local scorecards, easier and auditable voting, and election reports that trigger immediate operational repairs.

Now, to Mbah, Diri, Kefas, and the logic of “APC evangelism”. What truly drives these defections? It is too simple to blame one-party ambition, alleged rigging, cash, tactics, power plays, electoral math, or internal rifts. Deeper down, Nigeria’s hyper-presidential design quietly rewards vertical alignment: governors calculate that patronage, security coordination, and big-ticket infrastructure flow more smoothly when centre and state share a tent. In a climate of urgent citizen demands, alignment promises predictability—fewer veto points and quicker federal partnerships. Defection is also political insurance against hostile oversight, weaponised probes, and gridlock. With thin ideology and thick deal-making, the APC’s national spread offers a scale that regional outfits cannot match. After a few high-profile jumps, bandwagons form, brokers pivot, and staying put becomes more costly. In practice, defection signals “I can bring development,” not doctrine. The calculus is leveraged under scarcity: secure federal symmetry, de-risk politics, and compress the gap between promise and delivery.

Culture still beats slogans. If top teams punish dissent, truth gets filtered. If meetings reward certainty, evidence bends to fit it. If errors are shamed, they repeat. Beneath corruption sits an avoidance of hard questions; beneath inefficiency, a refusal to face trade-offs; beneath ineptitude, a talent market that confuses loyalty with competence. Crises can be teachers, if we interrogate discomfort and redesign the rules.

Choose depth over spectacle. Ask why and how before who and when. Seek the feedback you fear. Publish the data you would rather hoard. Reprice politics so competence can enter. Make it safe to surface weak signals early. If we change the shape below the waterline, the view above it will finally make sense. And as a practical expression of this ethos, I will present my essay collection—written over the last four years and sharing this title—on Tuesday, 14 October in Abuja, and Thursday, 16 October in Lagos.