This is always the case in every nation. Politicians will scheme purely for their own benefit at the expense of the public good, to the extent that the public has no role in putting and keeping them in office.
The only way to get the Nigerian politician to work for the Nigeria public is to get the Nigerian politician to fear and need the Nigerian public.
What has gone wrong in Nigeria is that the next normal step in political evolution has not taken place: the middle class has not built its own "vote canalization" links to the poor, enabling it to compete for their votes with the ruling class. No competition.
There are economic reasons why this hasn't happened. Our middle class is smaller & poorer than is ideal. Due to oil, Govt has gotten away with not collecting ample taxes, and so not needed to push us to industrialize. No industrial business class to fight elite.
And even large business owners are ultimately part of, & dependent on, the ecosystem of oil, govt contracts, & govt protection & concessions. So instead of 2 classes, aristocrats & industrialists fighting as tories vs liberals, we have a single "contractor class" as I call it
So basically, we the lower middle class have to find a way to Storm The Bastille on our own. We have to build our own vote canalization systems, and use them to break the Contractor Class's stranglehold over the electoral process. Until then, politics will not be about our issues
