Forty Years After Onyeka’s Cry: Squandering as National Pastime

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

She sat before the camera, slim, confident, eloquent – her face lit up not with the glamour of a singer but with the determination of a witness. Onyeka Onwenu, then barely 32, looked straight into Nigerian homes through the all-seeing eyes of the NTA Network Service, and asked the unaskable: why is a country so blessed behaving like a spoilt drunkard with bottomless pockets? Why do our leaders take the gift of oil wealth, wrap it in incompetence, sprinkle it with corruption, and serve it as poverty to the very people who own it?

  That was 1984. Four decades later, one must ask the question with a sigh, a shrug, and perhaps a belly laugh at the irony: have things changed? Or, more accurately, have things not worsened spectacularly?

  Onyeka’s now iconic documentary, Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches, was no gentle critique wrapped in polite metaphors. It was a bold slap across the face of a political class that had spent the Shehu Shagari years (1979–1983) turning Nigeria into a bazaar of profligacy. The “oil boom” of the 1970s had curdled into a “doom” by the early 80s. Billions of dollars had flowed in, only to be wasted on white elephants and phantom projects. The people, as usual, were left with empty promises and potholes big enough to swallow a Peugeot 504.

  By the time Onyeka’s documentary aired, the military had returned in khaki on the very last day of 1983. Major General Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy Tunde Idiagbon came to sweep away the “indiscipline” of the civilians. Nigerians, weary of Shagari’s festival of rice importation and cement contracts, initially cheered. But even in that climate of censorship, when journalists were arrested for the crime of asking questions, Onyeka dared to go on national television with a searing indictment of the ruling class. Her voice was calm, her evidence compelling: riches wasted, opportunities lost, and a nation marooned in poverty.

  She was not just a singer of soulful ballads or patriotic anthems. Onyeka was also a journalist – a graduate of Wellesley in Massachusetts, and The New School for Social Research in New York – who had once worked with the UN. She understood that art without conscience is mere entertainment. Her call in 1984 was not simply political; it was moral. She reminded us that national wealth is not meant to decorate the mansions of the few, but to raise the living standards of the many. That message, so clear, so urgent, should have been carved into the walls of every ministry in Abuja. Instead, it was ignored.

  And so the cycle rolled on. By the mid-1980s, the Maradona himself, General Ibrahim Babangida, had arrived with his endless smile and his endless programmes. Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) they called it; Suffering And Poverty was what ordinary Nigerians renamed it. Babangida and his men promised reforms but delivered more debt, more white elephants, and more abandoned steel mills. By the time Sani Abacha settled in with his dark goggles, the squandering had become a military sport. Oil revenues disappeared into Swiss accounts while ordinary Nigerians queued for kerosene and prayed for NEPA light.

  Onyeka’s prophetic voice had said: beware, this nation will grow poorer despite its riches. And indeed, Nigeria became the textbook case of the “resource curse.” Other countries with fewer resources – Malaysia, Indonesia, even Botswana – moved steadily forward, while we sank deeper into debt and dysfunction. Our refineries collapsed even as we exported crude; our universities crumbled even as we exported professors. We squandered not just riches but brains, time, and hope.

  Fast forward to today and the picture is hardly more flattering. The belly of Nigerian corruption has only grown wider, hungrier. The 1980s had its abandoned Ajaokuta Steel Complex; today we have abandoned power projects, airports built with fanfare but no passengers, and railways that cost billions yet barely move faster than tankers. Oil still accounts for more than 70 percent of government revenue, yet the majority of Nigerians live on less than $2 a day. Infrastructure remains in tatters. Hospitals remain consulting clinics, as late General Buhari once described them – ironically before returning to power decades later and himself seeking treatment abroad.

  Every era has produced its scandals. The Halliburton affair, the Siemens bribes, the fuel subsidy scam, Dasukigate – a rogues’ gallery of wasted billions. Each time, Nigerians are told investigations will be carried out, culprits will face justice. Each time, the files are quietly closed, the money vanishes, and the cycle resumes. What did Onyeka say in 1984? Riches squandered, opportunities wasted, a people trapped.

Her film was more than reportage; it was a moral document. It placed her in the proud lineage of Nigerian voices of conscience. Like Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who sang that government was nothing but a “robbing machine.” Like Chinua Achebe, who wrote that “the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.” And decades later, Wole Soyinka echoed the same lament: “There has been a failure of leadership. Our children… have been betrayed.” Onyeka’s courage was of the same cloth – an artist refusing to be silent while her nation bled. She proved that musicians, writers, journalists are not mere entertainers but custodians of conscience.

  Forty years on, her warning still lingers, almost mocking us. We are now borrowing not just to build roads but to pay salaries. Oil theft has reached industrial scale, with tankers vanishing like mischievous spirits in the creeks. Manufacturing has collapsed under the weight of epileptic power and multiple taxation. The naira, once stronger than the dollar when Onyeka made her film, now scrapes the floor with the Zimbabwean dollar in the race for depreciation.

  And yet, Nigerians still dance, still joke, still survive. Our resilience is both our strength and our curse. We laugh at our predicament, compose memes about our leaders, and then go back to queuing for fuel in an oil-producing country. But laughter will not build bridges, sarcasm will not put food on the table, and jokes will not stop the next billion from disappearing into private pockets.

So we return to Onyeka’s mirror. Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches was not just a film of the past; it remains a mirror of today. We must ask, again and again: will this nation continue its cycle of waste and corruption? Or will we, at last, learn that riches are not meant to be squandered but invested in the future?

  The challenge goes not only to the rulers in Abuja but to the citizens themselves. If we continue to shrug and move on, the squandering will never end. If we demand accountability, insist on transparency, and punish waste, perhaps Onyeka’s warning need not echo forever in vain.

  The incumbent political leadership must pay attention. The signals are clear, the dangers undeniable. A country that squanders its riches squanders its very future. Onyeka gave us the warning forty years ago. If we refuse to listen still, then the collapse will not be sudden or surprising; it will be the inevitable consequence of our collective negligence. And history, cruel as it is, will not spare us the judgement.