Is Politics Now a Slavery in Disguise? – Otunba Babatunde Olushola Senbanjo

By Otunba Babatunde Olushola Senbanjo (BOS)

When Senator Kabiru Marafa once asked the timeless and piercing question, and I quote: “Is politics slavery?”, many may have dismissed it as rhetoric. But under the current dispensation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the answer is no longer cloaked in ambiguity it is plain, glaring, and undeniable: politics has truly become slavery, shackled to the ambition of one man.

Tinubu has redefined politics in a manner that strips it of dignity, freedom, and collective vision. Instead of building men, he breaks them. Instead of nurturing independent thinkers and leaders, he reduces them to pawns mere tools to be moved around, sacrificed, or discarded in the grand chess game of his personal empire.

A true leader raises successors. A true statesman empowers his people. But what we see today is the opposite. Ambition has replaced service. Loyalty is demanded, not to the constitution, not to the people, but to an individual. Politics has been transformed into servitude where every voice must bow, every dream must shrink, and every rising star must be dimmed so that one man’s sun can continue to shine.

This is not democracy. This is not freedom. This is not leadership. It is slavery in disguise a system where allegiance to the people is sacrificed on the altar of allegiance to one man’s ambition. It is a betrayal of the very principles for which our heroes past fought and died.

Marafa’s question now echoes louder than ever, resonating across the conscience of every Nigerian who still believes in justice, equity, and true democracy. If politics is meant to be the platform where men and women of courage, integrity, and vision rise to serve their people, then what we see today is its perversion a captivity where ambition becomes the chain, and power becomes the whip.

We must not be deceived. History has shown us that no man, no matter how powerful, can hold down a people forever. Those who turn politics into slavery will one day be judged by the people they sought to enslave. Nigerians are not blind. They are not voiceless. They are only waiting for the hour when truth will prevail, and freedom will reclaim its rightful place in our democracy.

Senator Kabiru Marafa was right to ask, “Is politics slavery?” Today, under the shadow of Tinubu’s politics, we must answer boldly: Yes, it has been turned into slavery but only if we allow it to remain so.

The time has come to break the chains.