A George Orwell-Inspired Satirical Reflection on the Nigerian Political Class and Governance
Peter B. Ogbobine Esq
There comes a time in everyone’s life when mind, body and soul go into hiatus. Boredom sets in, especially after years of a fixed routine, and left unchecked, it can become the proverbial devil’s workshop. So, on a friend’s advice, I returned to reading for leisure and knowledge — an art the Nigerian hustle for survival had long ago almost made me to forget.
I started simple. James Hadley Chase and Nick Carter novels came to mind first, the raves of my secondary school days. Returning to them, though, was embarrassingly disappointing; they lacked the depth I now craved. So I retraced my steps to my WAEC literature list — the books that kept me doing “awoko” at Government College Ughelli: “She Stoops to Conquer” by Oliver Goldsmith, “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare, “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, etc.
Only now am I appreciating the richness of these works, far beyond the cramming needed to pass WAEC exam. Animal Farm has been a particular rediscovery. But then I asked myself: at the age of fifteen or sixteen, in Class 4 or 5, how could anyone reasonably expect a Nigerian child to grasp a timeless political allegory about the corruption of power, where lofty ideals gradually decay into tyranny?
Perhaps that is one of the shortcomings of our educational system – gist for another day. We were taught these foreign literary works, rooted in cultures far removed from ours, at an age when passing examinations mattered more than understanding life. Today, rereading them through the lens of experience, one discovers meanings that were invisible in adolescence. The books have not changed; I have.
Further education, maturity and exposure have finally supplied the context that my youthful mind lacked.
For anyone who has forgotten: Animal Farm tells of animals who overthrow their oppressive owner, Mr. Jones, hoping to build an equal society. Led by the pigs, the revolution curdles into dictatorship as Napoleon seizes power through fear, propaganda, and the expulsion of his rival, Snowball. The commandments are rewritten – culminating in “all animals are equal, but some are more equal” – history altered, and loyal workers like Boxer are exploited and discarded. By the end, the pigs are indistinguishable from the humans they replaced.
Orwell wrote the book in 1945 as a satire of Stalinist Russia. But if he’d spent a few months watching Nigerian politics instead, he might have written it without changing a sentence — swapping only “Manor Farm” for “Nigerian Farm.”
For Nigerians, this novel isn’t just literature; it’s a mirror of who we are. The parallels are striking. The animals of Manor Farm rebelled against Mr. Jones dreaming of freedom, much as Nigeria’s 1960 independence sparked hopes of prosperity and self-rule. Nigeria is a fascinating country — rich in resources and youthful energy, blessed enough to make poverty extinct. Yet through some political abracadabra even village native doctors can’t explain, it produces abundant wealth and abundant hardship with equal efficiency.
Nigerian Farm is populated by Fela’s “animals in human skin”: pigs who preach sacrifice while dining lavishly at public expense; sheep who applaud every party policy before understanding it; parrots who repeat whatever party headquarters says; chameleons who change political colours more often than the rainbow changes its own. And then there are the horses — ordinary Nigerians — pulling the national cart uphill while being told better days are ahead.
Every four years, democracy happens. Politicians trade agbada for local garb, discovering a sudden taste for akara, roadside corn and kuli kuli. They rediscover the common man, shake hands vigorously, and speak of the masses. Nigerians clap anyway — because hope, unlike garri, isn’t subject to inflation.
Every election is its own small revolution, and the electorate — playing Animal Farm’s hopeful, hard-working animals — cheers as a new set of leaders mounts the podium.
But Orwell’s sharpest satire isn’t the rebellion or the election — it’s the aftermath. It never takes long for the pigs to emerge. The smiling candidate who promised to be reachable “24/7” becomes Honourable, Distinguished, or Excellency, ringed by aides explaining why he can’t take calls. The man who once decried official convoys now insists ten SUVs are the bare minimum for governance.
I witnessed this transformation up close. I once worked at Conoil under a boss — now late — to whom I had almost unlimited access. Even years later, after he had left the company and won a seat in the Senate, that access never changed; a call or a visit was still just a call or a visit. But the day he became Governor of Oyo State, something shifted overnight. The man I once reached without difficulty became unreachable — calls unanswered, visits impossible, an entire apparatus of aides and protocol standing where an open door used to be. He may not have changed as a person; but the office had absorbed him, the way Manor Farm’s farmhouse absorbed its new occupants. Power, grabs its share of the national cake while the farm crumbles under inflation and decay.
Lawmakers vote themselves billions in allowances, and when citizens ask about potholes, the government’s chief propagandist — with Goebbels-level dexterity — explains that the SUVs are needed to carry the leaders’ heavy brains as they devise solutions.
As in Animal Farm, the foundational rules are slowly rewritten — through executive orders and policy briefs this time, to suit the ruling class, who follow the constitution selectively while demanding obedience from everyone else. In opposition, the loudest cry is “corruption is an abomination.” In power, it becomes “corruption is an abomination — unless committed by a member of the family.” And each time, the citizen — Boxer’s endlessly patient descendant — rolls up his sleeves and repeats the old motto: “I will work harder.” Infrastructure and governance keep collapsing, and the blame always lands on Snowball — the opposition, “the cabal,” “the past administration” — never on whoever currently holds the pen.
The real tragedy belongs to the citizens. The working class is Boxer: loyal, strong, tragically naive. Faced with fuel pricing and scarcity, grid collapse, and soaring food prices, the average Nigerian’s response is a mix of “God dey” and sheer determination to hustle harder. They wake early, navigate flooded potholed roads, pay dearly for transport, generate their own electricity — all while trusting that the next election, or divine intervention, will fix things. They work themselves to exhaustion, like Boxer, unaware that once their usefulness ends, the system has no life sustaining pension or healthcare waiting for them.
Watching from the sidelines are the Benjamins — Animal Farm’s cynical old donkey reborn as the Nigerian elders who’ve seen military rule give way to civilian rule and back again since independence. They never bought into any revolution’s hype. Asked if they’re happier now, they simply say they’ve seen it all before, and that no revolution ever truly succeeds. They’ve watched “Umbrella” hand power to “Broom,” progressives swap places with conservatives, and understood that whatever the logo, the elite’s grip never loosens. So they stop voting, stop arguing, and focus instead on securing visas so their wives can “japa” abroad for omugwo, while the men wait out their devalued pensions in quiet loneliness.
Animal Farm saves its vilest joke for the final scene: the pigs invite their old human enemies to dinner, and the watching animals, peering through the farmhouse window, find they can no longer tell pig from man. That image is an enduring metaphor for Nigerian politics. Every election season, every grand cross-party defection, sworn enemies who traded insults on live television the day before suddenly become inseparable — clinking champagne glasses at extravagant weddings, laughing together at society funerals, embracing under the convenient banner of “national interest,” with no ideology in sight.
Strip away the party logos, swap a “progressive” for a “conservative,” and the faces at the banquet remain the same — well-fed, insulated from hardship, eloquently preaching a sacrifice they never intend to make themselves.
That is the enduring genius of Orwell’s satire, and the painful comic parallel with the Nigerian experience. The pigs didn’t merely imitate the humans; they perfected the art of becoming them. The promise that “all animals are equal” quietly mutates into the doctrine that “some are more equal than others.” In that one sentence lies the unwritten constitution of Nigerian power — equality loudly proclaimed, selectively practised, and generously reserved for those already seated at the table.
The revolution, in Nigeria, is always an illusion. We remain captive to the belief that the next election, with new faces, will finally be different. But will it ever be — given our own habit of changing colour like chameleons, animals in human skin, the moment we come into power? Methinks not.
Modokpe
pbbine@gmail.com
