The Audacity of Grand Looting

Why pay failed public servants to retire in Luxury?

Jun 02, 2025

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Chinua Achebe: “Writers don’t give prescriptions. They give headaches.”

Permit me to ask a question that may sound rude to the ears of those marinated in the soporific comfort of their air-conditioned government offices: What exactly do African civil servants, ministers, parliamentarians, and presidents think they did to deserve pensions, gratuities, and ex-gratia packages?

No, this is not a rhetorical question. It is an honest-to-goodness interrogation born from frustration, rage, and profound disbelief that we continue to pay those who ruined our lives and our societies.

For more than seven decades, most African countries have danced away from the arms of the colonial master into the embrace of self-governance. What have these so-called servants of the people achieved except to loot the public treasury, mismanage state institutions, and run their nations into the proverbial ditch, so much so that no pamphlet of poverty and starvation will be complete without the picture of an African?

Yet, at the end of their disgraceful and unmeritorious tenure, instead of being led away in shackles for crimes against the state, the reprobates are decorated with national honors and medals, celebrated as “statesmen,” and showered with obscene pension packages that would make Arab monarchs blush.

Greed does not even begin to describe the tragedy. It should bother us that this grand theft—yes, theft—is what it is, even if the reprobate misrulers legalized it. It is a crime against us.

Let us begin with a simple observation: Africa is not working. That is not just an opinion. It is an empirical fact backed by the crumbling infrastructure, the empty state coffers, the army of jobless youths roaming the streets, sometimes with lynching intentions, and the smell of hopelessness that chokes the continent like a second skin.

In 2025, after all the UN “development decades,” all the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals, all the IMF and World Bank initiatives, after all the summits, conferences, and visits from Western NGOs and Chinese investors, the average African child still drinks from a muddy stream, studies under a tree, and hopes not to fall sick - because hospitals are cemeteries with walls.

And who is responsible for this catastrophe? Martians? Albino crocodiles? No, sir. It is the same so-called public officials and their political masters who, after destroying our lives, gave themselves hefty compensation for their “service.”

The very idea of compensating the rogues is insulting.

What is baffling is that African thieving elites want to be paid, compensated, and pampered for their years of plunder and that citizens kept quiet at the brazen insults these criminal misrulers hurl at them daily.

Let us consider this Nigeria, where the retiring governor of Lagos State is entitled to:

• A house in Lagos and another in Abuja

• Six brand new cars every three years

• A pension equivalent to the salary of a serving governor

• Free medical care for himself and his family

• A retinue of domestic staff and security personnel

• And other perks that make the monarchy look like volunteer work.

Mind you, this is in a state where public schools are collapsing, hospitals are operating without bandages, roads are flooded at the slightest rain, even in so-called exclusive areas, and road traffic is a daily ritual of suffering. Ironically, the state claims to be The Center of Excellence.]

It is the same in Ghana, where Article 71 of the Constitution has been weaponized to line the pockets of MPs, ministers, and presidents with insane retirement packages. Per this arrangement, Ghanaian ex-presidents are entitled to a mansion, staff, and a monthly salary that could fund an entire district hospital. And this is in a country where whole towns do not have a single ambulance!

A few years ago, I penned a piece titled “Ghana: The Audacity of Looting,” in which I examined, with a mixture of horror and nausea, how Ghanaian politicians loot the national treasury with the grace of ballerinas and the precision of Swiss bankers, irrespective of which party is in government. When it comes to sharing the national cake, political differences are set aside with baffling alacrity.

As I argued in the article, Ghanaian leaders are not content with stealing while in office; they are determined to keep looting even in retirement. You can read it here: https://femiakogun.substack.com/p/ghana-the-audacity-of-looting-revisited?r=3wwyw

Liberia? Their lawmakers earn more than U.S. Congressmen, even as the country remains one of the poorest in the world.

Kenya? South Africa? Similar stories. Fat-cat politicians loll in obscene luxury while the masses battle potholes, blackouts, and hunger.

Let us be brutally honest: What exactly do most African civil servants do all day? Pile paper? Chase files? Sip tea? Attend workshops on “capacity-building,” where the only thing being built is the girth of their stomachs.

And yet they retire expecting a golden parachute!

Consider the managers of now-defunct state companies: Nigerian Airways, Ghana Airways, Zambia Airways, and Uganda Railways. How many of these institutions were run into the ground by corrupt, visionless, and incompetent civil servants?

The people who supervised their demise now collect pensions as though they built something of enduring value.

And we tolerate it!

Ask the retired vice-chancellors of many African universities what they contributed to nation-building. Did they generate patents to earn money? Solve local problems? Did they create technology that could benefit society? No. They supervised the reproduction of British and French syllabuses and trained graduates in useless theories while the continent rotted outside their gates. What has been the achievement of all our agricultural science graduates in solving Africa’s food deficit? Why are all our electrical engineers unable to generate and distribute sufficient electricity from our abundance of sunshine all year and the mighty River Congo and other rivers?

Retired professors feel entitled to pensions after suffocating us with their academic masturbation.

The civil service in Africa is not a productive institution. It is a sponge, absorbing taxes, time, and national energy and giving back bureaucracy, mediocrity, and red tape.

In normal countries, pension schemes are designed to provide social security to aged citizens who spent their working lives contributing to the nation’s growth. In Africa, pensions have become golden parachutes for failed managers, corrupt politicians, and civil servants who couldn’t organize a two-car convoy without confusion.

They are being rewarded not for success but for tenure.

Consider this: You are a minister who embezzled funds for school feeding programs. You presided over a health ministry where pregnant women died in labor due to a lack of equipment. You leave the office after four years, and instead of going to jail, you get an SUV and a monthly cheque for life.

In what rational universe is this justice?

Let us accept that some civil servants and public officials were not thieves. That's fine. However, the overwhelming majority either looked away while others looted or lacked the competence to deliver on their mandates. It makes them complicit.

And if these officials were truly working for the nation, should they not consider their salaries during service as payment enough? Why must the same taxpayers who got nothing from them continue to fund their lavish retirement?

Let’s turn to China again as an example. While we in Africa pamper our parasitic leeches, Chinese public officials are under relentless pressure to deliver. Failure is punished - not with pensions but with prison and, in some cases, even with execution. In China, meritocracy rules all the way. The provinces compete to outshine each other with solid achievements. Those who succeed get promoted to the national level. No one gets into national government without first demonstrating competence at the local and provincial levels.

No, I am not saying we should bring out the firing squad. But we must ask ourselves: Why do African leaders feel no fear of consequences? Why do they think of public office as a cash-out opportunity? The reason is that they know that whatever they do, we will reward them even after they leave the office!

In China, officials who build hospitals and roads get recognition. In Africa, officials who fail to develop those things get pensions and ex gratia.

This moral inversion, this celebration of failure, explains why Africa continues to punch below her weight. Why should a civil servant hustle to solve problems when he knows that simply showing up for a few years guarantees him a soft landing in retirement?

African presidents are the worst culprits. Most of them were already stupendously rich before entering office. Yet, once inside the presidential palace, they transform into gluttonous ghouls, eating the meat, bones, and marrow of the national carcass. Michela Wrong brilliantly captured this in her book, “It Is Our Turn To Eat.”

Even without national airlines, African presidents feel no compunction having modern jets in their presidential fleets. They send their children to the best schools abroad, build mansions, fund lavish weddings for their children, and stash billions in foreign banks.

In the meantime, they imposed harsh, inhumane conditions on their people as directed by the IMF and the World Bank.

Then, when they finally “retire,” they do not go gently into the night. No, they go with motorcades, bodyguards, and massive pensions, leaving behind a bankrupt state, a broken people, and a trail of tears.

Greed does not even begin to describe this madness. Craziness does.

Rented mouthpieces with their vuvuzelas tell us that ministers and MPs deserve “ex gratia” payments. Based on what logic? The word itself - ex gratia—implies a gift. A token. A gesture of gratitude.

Gratitude for what, exactly? For what should citizens be grateful to these corrupt and shameless elite of Africa?

For making laws that protect only the elite? For passing budgets that channel funds to pet projects? For sitting in parliaments where the only motion that ever passes swiftly is increasing their allowances or approving foreign loans?

What we have in Africa today is not governance; it is gangsterism in designer suits.

The idea that such people should be rewarded with money from the very people they failed is not only obscene - it is criminal.

It is time to flip the script. Instead of paying these ex-officials, we should demand a refund. Let them pay back the salaries they collected without corresponding output. Let them refund the allowances they took while supervising disaster. Let’s demand an audit of their time in office and calculate the damage they caused.

Let the governor who awarded phantom contracts refund the money. Let the vice-chancellor who presided over sex-for-grades scandals face justice. Let the transport minister whose tenure saw a collapse in rail infrastructure be held to account.

No more national honors. No more portraits in government buildings. No more reverence for ruinous leaders. Instead of state funerals, give them forensic audits.

Africa cannot afford to keep repeating this cycle of failure. We cannot continue to fund the comfortable retirement of those who made life a living hell for the rest of us.

If we must pay pensions, let them be linked to performance. Let there be benchmarks. Only those who built, developed, and sacrificed for the nation should be rewarded.

Enough of the entitlement culture that sees public office as a gateway to private wealth.

We must demand accountability, shame, mediocrity, and reject the normalization of failure.

We must tell these misrulers that apart from the harsh judgment of history, their retirement package will not save them from the verdict of posterity. If they want to enjoy a dignified retirement, they must earn it.

Build hospitals. Fix roads. Improve schools. Reduce poverty. Then, and only then, can you ask for gratitude.

To the African people, wake up. Forget about your religion, tribe, or ethnicity. Stop celebrating thieves. Stop electing looters. Demand service. Demand results. Demand justice.

Africa does not lack money. We lack courage, integrity, shame, and the political will to say, “Enough!” to those misruling us.

As we keep repeating, we must learn from nations that rose from the ashes by insisting on merit, performance, and consequences.

Until we do that, we will remain a continent ruled by pensioned parasites. And we will have ourselves to blame.

(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, Essayist, Polemicist, Satirist, and Social Commentator.)

My Mission: Stultitia Delenda Est - Stupidity Must be Destroyed!

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