Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Portable Omo Olalomi hopped in with me one afternoon. The car stereo erupted.
“Ara adugbo… tuntun ti de o… Zazoo… o pọ l’eti… o yẹ k’ẹ ti ma gbo… Baddo sneh… Pepper sneh… many many were wa n le… ahh repete… unruly… hacker… ika… te s’oju e… eje loju bi t’Abacha… ma rerin… hu wa ika…”
The chant was relentless. The energy intoxicating. The spirit defiant.
But if one does not understand the Yoruba phrases, imagine a dark hall where mercilessness is celebrated, where ruthlessness earns applause, where excess becomes identity. That is the theatre Portable paints in Zazoo. It glorifies the hacker. It romanticises cunning. It flirts with moral collapse. It turns internet fraud into folklore and audacity into anthem.
It is street noise elevated into culture.
That is Nigeria in 2026.
Three years into the Tinubu presidency, the republic feels governed by volume. Declarations thunder. Statistics are recited with ceremony. Reform is announced with theatrical certainty. Yet in kitchens across the federation, the arithmetic of survival grows harsher by the day.
“Ara adugbo… tuntun ti de o.”
Yes, something new arrived in 2023. But newness without nourishment is novelty without relief. The anthem promised freshness. The economy delivered strain.
“O pọ l’eti… o yẹ k’ẹ ti ma gbo.”
It is loud in the ears. We have heard enough announcements. We have listened to enough assurances. We have absorbed enough speeches about necessary sacrifice. The problem is not that Nigerians have not heard. The problem is that Nigerians have not felt relief.
“Hacker… ika… te s’oju e.”
The glorification of cunning in Zazoo mirrors a political culture where boldness is mistaken for brilliance. Fuel subsidy was removed with a single declarative flourish. The naira was floated into turbulence in the name of reform. Electricity tariffs climbed with administrative confidence. Yet social cushioning lagged behind.
Audacity was displayed. Preparation was thin.
“Pepper sneh… many many were wa n le.”
Pain has become widespread. Food prices have entrenched themselves at punishing levels. Transport costs redraw family budgets. The middle class balances between aspiration and anxiety. Small businesses dim their lights to survive electricity bills. Farmers navigate insecurity before they navigate markets.
The administration speaks of resilience. The people speak of rice.
Thomas Hobbes warned that where protection falters, life becomes insecure and brutish. In rural communities, agricultural output thins under insecurity. In urban centres, the cost of living outpaces wage growth. Optimism from the podium no longer neutralises hardship in the marketplace.
“Eje loju bi t’Abacha… ma rerin.”
Blood in the eye. Do not laugh. The lyric exaggerates cruelty for artistic effect, but the metaphor unsettles. When hardship deepens and empathy appears shallow, governance begins to resemble indifference. Citizens feel governed but not shielded.
Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that government rests upon a social contract. When that bond strains, legitimacy becomes fragile. A state may retain authority yet lose emotional connection.
Aristotle defined the aim of the state as the good life. A nation where citizens ration protein, postpone education, and suspend ambition cannot claim proximity to that aim.
Zazoo celebrates excess and cunning. It praises the hacker who bends systems for gain. It stylises disorder as survival. Most of the song is street bravado. Yet when such a rhythm becomes a metaphor for governance, it stops being entertainment and starts being indictment.
Reform is not the enemy. Reckless reform is.
History demonstrates that economic transition requires calibration. During Nigeria’s significant liberalisation era, when Atiku Abubakar served as Vice President and chaired the National Council on Privatisation, reform was structured and sequenced. Telecommunications expanded from fewer than half a million connected lines to tens of millions within a few years. Private sector confidence deepened. Institutional processes guided policy. Change was prepared before it was proclaimed.
That distinction matters.
Subsidy reform without synchronised social investment destabilises purchasing power. Currency adjustment without coordinated export expansion magnifies vulnerability. Fiscal correction without production stimulation multiplies pain.
Reform without preparation is improvisation. Improvisation is not governance.
John Locke argued that the preservation of welfare and property forms the core of political legitimacy. When savings erode, salaries lose value, and small enterprises close, preservation has faltered.
Nigeria now faces a structural choice. Continue with a politics of loud reassurance while households recalibrate downward. Or pivot toward disciplined economic architecture grounded in experience and institutional memory.
In 2026, many young Nigerians feel suspended between talent and stagnation. Graduates navigate uncertain gig economies. Entrepreneurs battle energy costs. Innovators migrate toward stability elsewhere. Demographic advantage without economic structure becomes demographic frustration.
An African proverb teaches that when the drumbeat changes, the dance must change. Nigeria’s drumbeat has changed dramatically. It demands steadiness, not spectacle. It demands sequencing, not swagger.
“Ara adugbo… tuntun ti de o.”
If something new must truly arrive, let it not be noise. Let it be nourishment. Let it be coherence. Let it be governance that protects before it proclaims.
A nation cannot dance to chaos and expect to wake up in prosperity.
The music is still playing.
Nigeria must decide whether to continue applauding the noise
or to demand a different composition entirely.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
