A Marxist lens on Nigeria’s political elites: same faces, same failures, by Oluwadare Ayeni

Karl Marx, the 19th-century philosopher and revolutionary, argued that history is a history of class struggles—between those who control the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and those who sell their labor (the proletariat). He also warned about a ruling class that perpetuates its dominance by using state power to protect its economic interests and maintain control over the working masses. In modern political terms, especially in a post-colonial African state like Nigeria, Marx’s critique remains alarmingly relevant.

Let us consider the political elite in Nigeria—typified by individuals like Rotimi Amaechi, Rauf Aregbesola, Nasir El-Rufai, and David Mark. These men, though from different regions and ethnicities, belong to the same political bourgeoisie—a class that has captured the state and turned governance into a private enterprise. Through their decades in power, they have reproduced their own class privilege while deepening the poverty and disenfranchisement of the Nigerian working class.

Amaechi: Political Nomad of the Bourgeois Class

Amaechi’s 24-year journey through legislative, executive, and ministerial offices is a classic example of Marx’s theory of the circulation of elites. Like the capitalist who moves capital from one market to another in search of profit, Amaechi has moved through Nigeria’s power structures not to uplift the people, but to entrench himself within the ruling class. The railway system he championed, funded largely through foreign loans, did not emancipate the working class—it enriched contractors and entrenched dependency. For Marx, this is the commodification of public service: the reduction of state responsibility to private profit.

Aregbesola: A Governor for the Ruling Class

Marx believed that the state, in capitalist societies, exists to manage the common affairs of the bourgeoisie. Aregbesola’s rule in Osun State exemplifies this. While workers were denied full salaries and pensioners died from treatable illnesses, he prioritized lavish infrastructure and grandiose projects that had no direct benefit to the poor. Under the guise of development, the state served capital—not people. The “half-salary” policy was, in Marxist terms, a form of surplus extraction—where the worker’s labor is partially compensated while the fruits are diverted to elite networks.

El-Rufai: Divide and Rule as a Tool of the Bourgeoisie

Marx argued that ideology is the ruling class’s most powerful weapon. In multi-ethnic societies, ethnic and religious divisions are often instrumentalized to distract the masses from their real oppressors. El-Rufai’s divisive governance in Kaduna aligns with this pattern. Rather than unite the proletariat across religious lines, he deepened sectarian tensions, ensuring that poor Muslims and poor Christians would blame each other rather than confront the elite’s role in their suffering. This is classic false consciousness—where the oppressed fail to recognize their common enemy because of ideological manipulation.

David Mark: Military Bourgeoisie Turned Civilian Aristocrat

David Mark’s transition from a military governor threatening to kill Abiola, to a two-decade senator and Senate President, demonstrates how the military and civilian elite have merged into a single oppressive class. Marx identified this fusion in societies where institutions once meant to serve all citizens become tools of elite reproduction. Mark’s presence in the Senate for twenty years, without radical reform, is not accidental. It is a deliberate preservation of the status quo—a bourgeois democracy where elections occur, but power never really changes hands.

Conclusion: A Case for a Proletarian Revolution of Consciousness

Marx wrote that the working class must break the chains of oppression by developing class consciousness—an awareness that their suffering is structural, not accidental. In Nigeria, that awakening is beginning to take shape among the youth. The #EndSARS movement, demands for transparency, calls for constitutional reforms—these are early signs of a proletarian awakening.

But the youth must go further. They must reject the elite’s tired narratives of experience and continuity. They must see through the illusion of ethnicity and party ideology, which are tools used to divide the oppressed. As Marx said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”

Nigeria will not change by recycling the same bourgeois actors who failed it. It will change when the working masses, especially the youth, organize not just for protest but for power.

In this, Marx is not merely a theorist. He is a guide—pointing us toward the inevitable truth: that no ruling class voluntarily relinquishes power; it must be taken from them through organized, conscious struggle.

• Ayeni is an Associate Professor of Public Governance at the University of Abafemi Awolowo